London – American and Russian dealers were to meet again in Saudi Arabia on Monday as the White House continued its push for a ceasefire and any peace deal to end Moscow’s 3-year war against Ukraine.
A proposed break on strikes targeting energy infrastructure is expected to be among the topics of discussion, where both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have already stated their support – at least in principle – to the plan.
Russia’s state-of-the-art Tass news agency reported that the US and Russian teams began talking behind closed doors in Riyadh on Monday morning.
President Donald Trump’s Middle East – Release Steve Witkoff – who has been central to conversations with both Moscow and Kyiv – expressed hope of progress on Sunday and told Fox News that the president’s “Peace philosophy through strength brings people to the table to clean up misunderstandings and get peace deals done.”
“I’m not sure how someone would expect an end to a conflict when you are not communicating,” Witkoff said.
A picture taken on March 23, 2025, shows an overview of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where there are talks with American mediation to try to reach a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukrine war.
Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images
The US-Russia Meeting Monday will be on the heels of a meeting between the US and Ukrainian teams in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Sunday. Zelenskyy said on Sunday night that he had been informed of the “quite useful” discussion of Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who participated.
“But whatever we are discussing with our partners right now, Putin has to be pushed to issue a real order to stop the strikes – because the one who brought this war must be the one to take it back,” Zelenskyy said, referring to Moscow’s continued missile and drone attacks across the country. Ukraine has also continued her own long-range drone strikes into Russia.
But other comments from Witkoff over the weekend again had concerns in Ukraine and elsewhere that the Trump administration adapts to false or misleading Russian tales of its decades long campaigns with interference and aggression in Ukraine.
Donetsk, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson-Plus Crimea, which has been in 2014, Witkoff told Tucker, Carlson that they want them to discuss the Ukrainian regions, partially occupied and claimed annexed by Russia since 2022.
Witkoff did not recognize that the alleged referendum held in these territories – whether in 2014 in the event of Crimea or 2022 in the other regions – was widely rejected by Western powers, human rights organizations and international bodies as fraudulent and unclear.
In September 2022, the then Secretary of State Antony Blink said that the United States “will not and will never acknowledge any of the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over parts of Ukraine that it is seized by power and now claims to incorporate into Russia.”
Witkoff also proclaimed the seemingly warm relationship between Trump and Putin and told Carlson that the Russian leader claimed to have asked for “his friend” Trump after the attempted murder against the president in July 2024. Putin also gave Witkoff a portrait of Trump as a gift, he said.
“This is the kind of connection that we have been able to restore through a simple word called communication that many people would say that I should not have had because Putin is a bad guy,” Witkoff said. “I don’t consider Putin as a bad guy.”
Witkoff’s latest remarks have elaborated on the concerns in Ukraine about the Trump administration’s approach to the beginning process of peace.
A firefighter works at a place an apartment building hit by a Russian drone strike in Kiev, Ukraine, on March 23, 2025.
Vladyslav Musiienko/Reuters
“What he has said is absolutely unacceptable,” Oleksandr morezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chairman of Body’s Foreign Affairs Committee told ABC News. “When I listen to his interview, I thought with myself, ‘Who is he? The US President’s envoy or Putin’s envoy?'”
Witkoff, added morezhko, may have fallen for “Russian propaganda” or maybe trying to win Putin’s support for Trump’s ceasefire proposal.
Either way, morezhko Trump called on to reject what he called Witkoff’s “dangerous statements.”
The Kremlin meanwhile said this weekend that “there are difficult negotiations ahead.” Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Russian State -Tv, “We are only at the beginning of this path.”
Deadly cross -border drone attacks continued throughout the weekend. On Sunday night to Monday morning, Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia launched 99 drones inland, 93 of which were either shot down or lost during flight without causing damage.
Russian air defense shot down 28 drones fired to Russian territory by Ukraine, according to the Russian Department of Defense.
ABC News’ Yuriy Zaliznyak, Victoria Beaule, Anna Sergeeva and Guy Davies contributed to this report.
