Ukraine Peace Talks in Saudi Arabia

It's the start of a big week of peace talks aiming to end the war in Ukraine, American officials say they believe Kyiv is ready to move forward in a ceasefire process with Russia ahead of talks in Saudi Arabia. President Zelensky will also travel there although he won't be taking part in negotiations.

Officials from Ukraine and the US will meet for the first time since the clash between their two leaders last week. All this comes as the Ukrainian military said that Russia launched 176 drones during an overnight attack. According to a report; it was a weekend of deadly attacks by an unrelenting Russia. This is the Donetsk region in the East where 11 people were killed and 40 wounded including six children according to Ukrainian officials. Attacks like this have intensified across the country in recent days this one in Odessa in the south after the US paused military ear intelligent sharing and no some satellite imagery. Despite this the US is determined to forge ahead with talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and says they believe Ukraine's leader is ready to move forward with its demand for a ceasefire. President Zelensky will not attend the talks personally but will meet the Saudi leader Muhammad bin Salman today. Senior us officials led by the Secretary of State Marco Rubio will then meet a delegate from Ukraine on Tuesday to discuss the terms of a potential truce. Zelensky says “I'm confident the meeting will be productive we and Ukraine are committed to this we are very much. So we will do our best to ensure that Ukrainian interests are taken into account taken into account in the right way”. Ahead of the talks and speaking on a news source; President Trump described the war as a mess. The journalist asked “Are you comfortable with that the fact that you walked away and Ukraine may not survive”, then Trump replied “well it may not survive anyway but you know we have some weaknesses with Russia, you know it takes two. Look it was not going to happen that war and it happened so now we're stuck with this mess”.

But just a few hours ago he suggested the US is easing its pause on sharing military intelligence. Trump says “we want to do anything we can to get Ukraine to be serious about getting something done”.

The relationship between America and Ukraine remains fragile after a heated Exchange in the white house earlier this month. And Europe has also come under Fire from president Trump who wants it to step up and spend more on defense. The UK has already committed to increasing its spending on defense and said it's willing to put troops on the ground in Ukraine but what's not clear is how many other European countries could join a so-called Coalition of the Willing. The US knows Ukraine is coming to these latest talks on the bik foot and if progress towards peace is to be made, then compromise will also be needed.

We can get more analysis on those talks. As a senior in the war studies department at Kings College London so gave us a sense of Saudi Arabia's position in all of this because it's been able to maintain close ties with Russia Ukraine and the United States how do it managed that. The senior said that because it's really positioned itself over the last decade to nurture and to be able to position itself as if you want the in the a global interlocutor it's had a superb relationship with the Trump Administration.
The first one it has been able to co-manage the global energy markets for the last decade or so through the OPEC plus mechanism with the Russian president and as well as it's been able to be the center and the source of numerous prisoner releases between the Ukrainians and the Russians. So way if you look deeper into it you see Saudi Arabia is one of the very few countries that has a global consequence that is consequential enough to be able to be doing what it's doing today.

Well, during this war is provided Ukraine with hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian Aid at the same time is continued an economic partnership with Russia, how would you compare the two and would Saudi Arabia still be considered neutral in this conflict. To this question he said that the economic partnership for the rest; it's been more of an energy management of the global energy market so as I was earlier saying through the OPEC plus mechanism the two largest oil exporters be them be it Saudi Arabia and Russia were able to to manage it and to make sure that there was no disruption and economic Global disruption due to the War between the Russians and Ukrainians and on the other side as it is correctly pointed out Crown Prince Muhammad has been key in providing a lot of humanitarian Aid to the Ukrainians. So it's not one versus the other they're relatively neutral and at the same time the in the person of the Crown Prince, he's been able to have an enormous amount of credibility trust and above all influence to be able to bring all the warring parties to Saudi Arabia to hopefully end this war.

Well, both sides are facing huge losses. Countries in Europe are trying to help and support Ukraine by not only providing economic assistance but also military aids and war materials. Europe has risen as an even more contributor to Ukraine, in helping Ukraine in its war, specifically after the cut of military and intelligence aids by United States of America.

Well, after the fury between Trump and Zelensky, the things have changed quite much but they might recover as well. Trump administration might still help Ukraine to stop the war, as it is not a single sided loss. Well, it is better as soon as the war ends.