The United States will lift sanctions on Russia if all parties reach an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, said on Tuesday. Speaking after a four-hour meeting with Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Rubio confirmed that sanctions relief is on the table.
“There has to be concessions made by all sides,” Rubio said. “But it would be wrong to predetermine those.” He added that European Union sanctions could be re-evaluated since Brussels would be part of the larger discussion.
First US-Russia talks in two years begin negotiations
The meeting in Saudi Arabia was the first formal diplomatic engagement between the two countries since January 2022, when then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken last met with Lavrov in Geneva, just a few weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Alongside Rubio, the US delegation included Steve Witkoff, special envoy, and Mike Waltz, national security adviser. Russia’s side was represented by Lavrov, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, and Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).
According to Ushakov, discussions will continue regardless. “Separate teams of Russian and US negotiators will begin contact on Ukraine in due time,” he told Russian state agencies TASS and RIA Novosti on Tuesday.
Tammy Bruce, a US State Department spokesperson, said that: “One phone call followed by one meeting is not sufficient to establish enduring peace. We must take action, and today we took an important step forward.”
“The first is that the only leader in the world who can make this happen, who can even bring people together to begin to talk about it in a serious way, is President Trump,” Rubio said.
The Kremlin has challenged the legitimacy of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidency in Ukraine, pointing to martial law preventing elections. Kyiv has dismissed these claims, arguing that elections cannot be held during an active war.
Russia is also worried about the economic effects of the war and sanctions. Kirill Dmitriev, the head of RDIF, attended the meeting and told Russian media that the US economy has suffered from its withdrawal from Russia, estimating $300 billion in lost American business investments.
“There’s a huge economic toll on many countries from what’s happening right now,” Dmitriev said, according to Interfax. “We believe a way forward is through solutions.”
The US-Russia meeting comes after an announcement from President Donald Trump last week that he had spoken to President Vladimir Putin about starting negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Trump, who still maintains a close friendship with the Russian president, said the talks are a necessary step for global stability.
Putin and Trump are expected to have a meeting, likely in Moscow. On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the meeting would focus on restoring US-Russia ties, which former president Joe Biden destroyed.
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