RIYADH: US President Donald Trump will see his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia for their first meeting since taking office in January.
Trump’s announcement came after an almost 90-minute phone conversation with the Russian leader, where they discussed in ending the nearly three-year Moscow offensive in Ukraine.
“We ultimately expect to meet. In fact, we expect that he’ll come here, and I’ll go there, and we’re gonna meet also probably in Saudi Arabia the first time, we’ll meet in Saudi Arabia, see if we can get something something done,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
الرئيس ترامب يقول انه سيجتمع مع الرئيس الروسي بوتين في السعودية، لمناقشة إنهاء الحرب في أوكرانيا، بحضور ولي العهد السعودي الأمير محمد بن سلمان :
"بوتين وأنا نعرف ولي العهد جيداً، والسعودية ستكون المكان المناسب للقائنا الأول". pic.twitter.com/k7dXV1J67o
— محمد|MFU (@mfu46) February 12, 2025
A date for the meeting “hasn’t been set” but it will happen in the “not too distant future,” the US president said.
He suggested the meeting would involve Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “We know the crown prince, and I think it’d be a very good place to meet.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov earlier announced that Putin had invited Trump and officials from his administration to visit Moscow to discuss Ukraine.
“The Russian president invited the US president to visit Moscow and expressed his readiness to receive American officials in Russia in those areas of mutual interest, including, of course, the topic of the Ukrainian settlement,” Peskov said.
The invitation followed Trump’s announcement Wednesday that peace talks would start “immediately” and that Ukraine would probably not get its land back, causing uproar on both sides of the Atlantic.
