US-Ukraine talks will be held in Saudi Arabia next week, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, expressing hopes that it will be "a meaningful meeting". The Ukrainian leader, who will be in the Kingdom but not take part in the talks, said Kyiv was working to reach a "fast and lasting" peace. US President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said the American team wanted to discuss a "framework" for peace to try to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Last Friday, Zelensky and Trump were involved in a public clash at the White House — during which Trump said Zelensky was not ready to end the fighting. The US proceeded to pause military aid to Ukraine and stop sharing intelligence. The Ukrainian president has expressed regret about the incident and tried to repair relations with the US — the country's biggest military supplier. On Thursday, Witkoff said Trump had received a letter from Zelensky that included an "apology" and "sense of gratitude". "Hopefully, we get things back on track with the Ukrainians, and everything resumes," Witkoff said. Zelensky has been under strong US pressure to make concessions ahead of any peace talks, while the Ukrainian president has been pushing for firm security guarantees for Kyiv. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and now controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory. Zelensky announced the US-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia in a series of posts on social media, after attending Thursday's crisis summit in Brussels where European Union leaders endorsed plans for a boost in defense spending. "Ukrainian and American teams have resumed work, and we hope that next week we will have a meaningful meeting," he wrote on X. "Ukraine has been seeking peace since the very first moment of the war, and we have always stated that the war continues solely because of Russia." Zelensky urged the global community to put more pressure on Moscow so it "accepts the need to end" the war. He also made an apparent reference to a truce plan outlined earlier this week by French President Emmanuel Macron, which proposed a ceasefire in the air and at sea, and an end to attacks on energy and other civilian infrastructure. Russia has not publicly commented on the French proposals. On Thursday, Putin said Moscow was seeking a peace "that would ensure calmness for our country in the long-term perspective. "We don't need anything that belongs to others, but we won't give up anything that belongs to us either," the Kremlin leader added. Russia annexed Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula in 2014, and claims another four Ukrainian regions in the south-east as its own — although Moscow doesn't fully control them. Ukraine and its European allies have in recent weeks expressed alarm over what many on the continent see as Donald Trump's overtures to Russia. Trump vowed during the US election campaign to bring the war to an end quickly, and preliminary US-Russian talks were held in Saudi Arabia last month - without European or Ukrainian representatives present. The US's decision to halt its military aid Ukraine has been cast by Trump administration officials as a means of getting Kyiv to cooperate with the US-led peace talks. Any corresponding pressure the US has been putting on Moscow to make concessions has not been made public. — BBC
