Morning opening: Oh I wanna be in the room where it happens
Jakub Krupa
Back when Europe was still looking to America with hope, and not despair and confusion, a US musical perfectly captured the nature of the conversations we are going to see today:
No one really knows how the game is played
The art of the trade
How the sausage gets made
We just assume that it happens
But no one else is in the room where it happens
Well, from the European point of view, that is exactly the problem: that no one will be in the room where it happens as the US and Russian negotiators meet in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia this morning.
Their talks have just started in the last few minutes.
US secretary state Marco Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov are going to discuss their bilateral relations, potential for future partnerships, and what they intend to do to bring to an end the Russian illegal aggression of Ukraine.
But Ukraine and Europe are not there and will have to rely on a polished version of what they get told by the US administration. Not ideal.
As Hamilton put it,
When you got skin in the game, you stay in the game
But you don’t get a win unless you play in the game
Oh, you get love for it
You get hate for it
But you get nothing if you
Wait for it
The question of how to get back in that room was discussed at the last night’s emergency meeting in Paris, and I will be looking at reactions across Europe and European leaders’ plans on what’s next.
Or, to quote Aaron Burr,
I wanna be (Where it happens)
I’ve got to be, I’ve got to be (I wanna be in the room where it happens)
In that room (The room where it happens)
In that big ol’ room (The room where it happens)
It’s Tuesday, 18 February 2024, and this is Europe Live. It’s Jakub Krupa here.
Good morning.
Key events
EU wants to work alongside US in ‘critical moment’ for Ukraine, von der Leyen tells US envoy Kellogg
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told US envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellog that the European Union wants to “work alongside the US to end the bloodshed and help secure the just and lasting peace that Ukraine and its people rightfully deserve,” according to a readout released by her office.
Von der Leyen also presented Kellogg with “Europe’s plans to scale up defence production and spending, reinforcing both European and Ukrainian military capabilities.”
“Reaffirming the EU’s commitment to a just and lasting peace, the President reiterated that any resolution must respect Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, backed by strong security guarantees,” the note said.
“As the President made it clear: now is a critical moment,” it added.
Trump upended ‘trustful’ EU-US relations, EU’s Ribera says, promising enforcement against US Big Tech
European Commission vice-president Teresa Ribera told Reuters that US president Donald Trump has upended the “trustful relationship” between the United States and Europe, and that Brussels should focus on providing the predictability and stability that is lacking in Washington.
“We need to stick to our strengths and principles,” she said in an interview in London on Monday, criticising Trump’s transactional approach to politics.
“We need to be flexible but we cannot transact on human rights nor are we going to transact on the unity of Europe, and we are not going to transact on democracy and values,” she argued.
In unusually direct comments, Ribera also criticised the US policymaking, saying she does “not see any predictability, stability or affordability in these announcements, this is a little bit shocking.”
The Spanish politician, who is in charge of EU’s digital playbook rules in the Digital Services Act, also said that – despite repeated criticism from the US administration – she would issue two decisions on US Big Tech companies, Apple and Meta, “next month.”
“There will be decisions along the lines that have been discussed with the companies, developed and based on evidence,” she said.
‘Decision, actions, coherence – quickly,’ Macron says of Europe’s plans for Ukraine
Speaking of France’s Emmanuel Macron, we didn’t hear from him last night, but he posted a social media update after the talks.
“After bringing together several European leaders, I have just spoken with President @realDonaldTrump and then with President @ZelenskyyUa,” he said.
He asserted that European partners “seek a strong and lasting peace in Ukraine,” as “Russia must end its aggression, and this must be accompanied by strong and credible security guarantees for the Ukrainians.”
Repeating similar warnings from other leaders, he said that “otherwise, there is a risk that this ceasefire will end up like the Minsk agreements.”
“We will work on this together with all Europeans, Americans, and Ukrainians. This is the key.
We are convinced that Europeans must invest better, more, and together in their security and defense—both for today and for the future.
To this end, Europeans want to accelerate the implementation of their own agenda for sovereignty, security, and competitiveness. Work will continue based on the European Commission’s proposals, both in supporting Ukraine and in developing and investing in our defense. This agenda, defined in 2022 at the Versailles Summit, must simply be carried out.
Decisions, actions, coherence. Quickly.
I will continue these discussions in the coming days.
Even ‘hesitant,’ EU will still be strong enough to help us prevail, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister says
Ukrainian deputy prime minister Olha Stefanishyna is in Warsaw this morning attending a General Affairs Council of the European Union, and she briefly spoke with reporters before the meeting.
Stefanishyna was also asked about potential security guarantees for Ukraine and deployment of European troops as part of a peacekeeping force, and her thoughts on the Paris summit last night.
She noted that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy had “a long phone call” with the host, French president Emmanuel Macron, and said the question of guarantees and deployment remained under “active discussion”.
“We are closely following the developments on the US side, but I am sure that the European Union, while … hesitant on many issues, will be strong enough to help Ukraine prevail,” she said.
She also stressed that Ukraine was “not in a process of negotiating a deal,” while acknowledging the “processes” put in place by the new US administration.
She also said that Ukraine “has not rejected” the proposed US deal on critical minerals, which remain under discussion. “We expect that it will be signed,” she said.
Stefanishyna was part of the Ukrainian delegation at the Munich Security Conference, taking part in a bilateral meeting with US vice-president JD Vance alongside president Zelenskyy.
US Ukraine envoy Kellogg in Brussels
And almost in parallel, US Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg arrives at the Berlaymont in Brussels for his talks with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
Later today, he will also meet with European Council president António Costa before travelling to Poland to meet with Polish president Andrzej Duda.
Inside the room where it happens – pictures
… and we are now getting first pictures from inside the room where it happens as the US-Russia talks get under way in Riyadh.
Morning opening: Oh I wanna be in the room where it happens
Jakub Krupa
Back when Europe was still looking to America with hope, and not despair and confusion, a US musical perfectly captured the nature of the conversations we are going to see today:
No one really knows how the game is played
The art of the trade
How the sausage gets made
We just assume that it happens
But no one else is in the room where it happens
Well, from the European point of view, that is exactly the problem: that no one will be in the room where it happens as the US and Russian negotiators meet in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia this morning.
Their talks have just started in the last few minutes.
US secretary state Marco Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov are going to discuss their bilateral relations, potential for future partnerships, and what they intend to do to bring to an end the Russian illegal aggression of Ukraine.
But Ukraine and Europe are not there and will have to rely on a polished version of what they get told by the US administration. Not ideal.
As Hamilton put it,
When you got skin in the game, you stay in the game
But you don’t get a win unless you play in the game
Oh, you get love for it
You get hate for it
But you get nothing if you
Wait for it
The question of how to get back in that room was discussed at the last night’s emergency meeting in Paris, and I will be looking at reactions across Europe and European leaders’ plans on what’s next.
Or, to quote Aaron Burr,
I wanna be (Where it happens)
I’ve got to be, I’ve got to be (I wanna be in the room where it happens)
In that room (The room where it happens)
In that big ol’ room (The room where it happens)
It’s Tuesday, 18 February 2024, and this is Europe Live. It’s Jakub Krupa here.
Good morning.
US-Russia talks in Riyadh start
The talks between the US and Russia are now under way in Riyadh, Reuters says.
Donald Trump sidelined Kyiv and other European capitals from the negotiations on ending the Ukraine war and then called into question the future of US support for Europe’s security altogether.
In this podcast, the Guardian’s central and eastern Europe correspondent, Shaun Walker, talks through a seismic week.
Russia hopes that the US will hear Moscow’s position during the talks in Riyadh, the chief of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund said today.
Russia’s Interfax news agency was quoting Kirill Dmitriev, a US-educated former Goldman Sachs banker who played a role in early contacts between Moscow and Washington during Trump’s first term as president from 2016-20.
Meanwhile, the start of the talks would have no impact on Moscow’s cooperation with Tehran, the Tass news agency reported on Tuesday, citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
He added that Russia was ready to help Iran in solving problems related to its nuclear program.
Today’s Russia-US talks in Riyadh come barely a month after Donald Trump took office and reflect a significant departure from Washington’s position under the administration of Joe Biden, who eschewed public contacts, concluding that Russia was not serious about ending the war, Reuters reports.
Russia, which has occupied parts of Ukraine since 2014, launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022. Trump has vowed to end the war quickly. Ukraine says no agreements can be made on its behalf in the talks, to which Kyiv was not invited.
US officials sought to cast today’s talks as an initial contact to determine whether Moscow was serious about ending the war in Ukraine.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters in Riyadh:
This is a follow-up on that initial conversation between Putin and President Trump about perhaps if that first step is even possible, what the interests are, if this can be managed.
The Kremlin, however, suggested the discussions would cover “the entire complex of Russian-American relations”, as well as preparing for talks on a possible settlement regarding Ukraine and a meeting between the two presidents.
Here’s the latest Ukraine war briefing ahead of today’s US-Russia talks to discuss ending the conflict.
As Warren Murray and agencies report, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the US was trying to “please” Vladimir Putin as it aimed for a “quick win” by rushing towards a ceasefire. “But what they want – just a ceasefire – is not a win,” the Ukrainian president said in an interview broadcast on Monday. “We [Ukraine] will not sign just anything in order to be applauded … the fate of our state for generations to come [is at stake].”
Zelenskyy also warned that Europe was in a weak position if it could not rely on US security assistance. “There will definitely not be a Ukrainian victory without US support.”
Zelenskyy said he and Donald Trump had spoken about deploying foreign troops to police a future ceasefire. “I told him the Americans should be a part of this, because otherwise we might lose our unity.”
At a meeting of Kyiv’s backers in Brussels last week, the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, flatly rejected the possibility of a US troop deployment to Ukraine.
Click here for the full report:
European futures hit record peaks on Tuesday as defence stocks soared on expectations of a spending bump.
S&P 500 futures were up 0.2% and European futures were up 0.1%, Reuters reports. On Monday the pan-European STOXX 600 index closed 0.5% higher as a gauge of defence and aerospace stocks surged 4.6% to lifetime peaks, having already more than doubled in value since Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago.
Investors expect earnings in the industry to continue to rise strongly, driven by a significant surge in defence budgets to meet new security needs – which analysts have dubbed a “supercycle” for the sector.
Hopes for an end to hostilities in Ukraine also improved sentiment in other sectors in Europe.
“A resolution to the conflict in Ukraine could deliver positive growth impulses for Europe, including improved consumer confidence, lower energy prices and easier financial conditions,” said Bruno Schneller, managing director at Erlen Capital Management.
French president Emmanuel Macron on Monday hosted an emergency summit on Ukraine after US officials suggested Europe would have no role in any talks this week in Saudi Arabia aimed at ending the conflict. The UK said it was ready to send peacekeeping troops to back up any deal.
Headlines in European newspapers today were dominated by the emergency meeting of leaders in Paris after a week in which the US sidelined Europe and Ukraine from ceasefire negotiations and made it plain the US should not be relied upon for the region’s security, Helen Livingstone reports.
The summit came a day before today’s US-Russia meeting in Riyadh but ended with little unity on crucial points, including the idea of sending a European peacekeeping force to the country.
“Europe in Trump shock”, Germany’s Handelsblatt reported, writing that even as Europeans try to find a common strategy for dealing with Russia and the US, there is “no consensus on key questions”.
In the UK, the Guardian splashed on “Starmer: US ‘backstop’ vital to deter future Russian attacks on Ukraine” and reported that European leaders had also called for a “massive boost in defence spending” at the Paris meeting.
For a full rundown on the headlines, click here:
The prospects of the US-Russia talks leading to an agreement to halt the fighting in Ukraine are unclear, Agence France-Presse reports, and the US and Russia have cast the discussions as the beginning of a potentially lengthy process.
“I don’t think that people should view this as something that is about details or moving forward in some kind of a negotiation,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, told state media the talks would discuss “how to start negotiations on Ukraine”.
Both Ukraine and Russia have ruled out territorial concessions and Putin last year demanded Kyiv withdraw its troops from even more territory.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy travelled to Turkey on Tuesday to discuss the conflict with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and then Saudi Arabia a day later.
He does not plan to hold talks with either the US or Russian delegations, his spokesperson said on Monday.
Zelenskyy said last week he was prepared to meet Putin, but only after Kyiv and its allies had a common position on ending the war.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the US-Russia talks in Riyadh – it’s approaching 8am in the Saudi capital.
Today’s talks aim to pave the way for the first exchanges on a potential peace deal to end the Ukraine war. However, Kyiv and European leaders have been excluded, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine “cannot recognise any things or any agreements about us without us”.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and senior Putin aide Yuri Ushakov are to meet with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, criticised US president Donald Trump’s decision to rush into peace talks with Russia, saying it was “highly inappropriate” that a debate had started about the outcome of talks that had not yet taken place and were being conducted without Ukraine’s involvement.
This is Adam Fulton to kick off our reporting before Jakub Krupa takes the reins later to steer you through the day.
The US and Russian sides both sides played down the chances that the first high-level meeting since US Trump took office would result in a breakthrough, but the existence of the talks and Washington’s recent overtures towards the Kremlin have alarmed Ukraine and Europe.
The talks come after European leaders gathered in Paris for an emergency summit on how to respond to the new US administration’s dramatic pivot. The summit heard widespread calls for a large boost in defence spending, and the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, later urged Trump to provide a US “backstop” to a European peacekeeping force in Ukraine, saying it was the only way to deter Russia from attacking the country again.
Preparations for a possible summit between presidents Trump and Vladimir Putin are also expected to be on the Riyadh agenda. Trump is pushing for a swift resolution to the three-year conflict in Ukraine, while Russia sees his outreach as a chance to win concessions.
In other developments:
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Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, said on Monday upon arrival in Riyadh that talks on Ukraine would be strictly bilateral, Russia’s RIA state news agency reported. “We came to negotiate with American colleagues,” it quoted Ushakov as saying. “These are bilateral talks, purely bilateral. There can be no trilateral talks in Riyadh.”
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The Riyadh talks are proceeding to follow up on a surprise phone call to Putin initiated by Trump last week. Trump’s special Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, stressed Trump wanted a quick deal: “We are now at Trump time, which means I get an assignment today and tomorrow at noon he asks me why it hasn’t been done yet.”
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Russia said ahead of the meeting that Putin and Trump wanted to move on from “abnormal relations” and that it saw no place for Europeans to be at any negotiating table.
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Zelenskyy accused Washington of wanting “to please” Putin by “now saying things that are very favourable” to him. The Ukrainian president said any peace deal would need to include “robust and reliable” security guarantees, which France and Britain have called for but not all European powers support.
