The head of the presidential office of Ukraine, Andrii Yermak, and a delegation including top security officials traveled to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this week and held meetings on Wednesday with Saudi leaders regarding “security guarantees” for the country.
Ukraine is currently embroiled in intense discussions with European countries, the United States, and other allies in pursuit of a long-term solution to end the decade-old Russian invasion of its territory. Momentum towards a firm peace deal escalated following a meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, between President Donald Trump and Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. Trump has also suggested a potential trilateral meeting including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump met with Putin in Alaska on August 15, then met with Zelensky at the White House three days later, flanked by the heads of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and various European bureaucratic entities.
While negotiations towards a Putin-Zelensky meeting have since stalled, both Ukraine and Russia have spent the past week leveraging their alliances and engaging the few countries that enjoy friendly relations with both countries, paramount among them Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia helps Ukraine with prodigious humanitarian aid, cementing its cordial ties to the government, while simultaneously retaining its status as the world’s most prolific buyer of Russian fossil fuels and resisting Western calls to sanction Moscow.
Riyadh responded positively to the Trump-Putin meeting, stating it “welcomed” the exchange.
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“The [Saudi Foreign Affairs] ministry emphasized Saudi Arabia’s continued support for diplomatic dialogue as the primary means to resolve international disputes and conflicts,” according to its statement, as shared on August 16 by the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
According to the Ukrainian state news website Ukrinform, Yermak and Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Rustem Umerov met with Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud to discuss a potential Saudi role in mediating an end to the war.
“The main topics of our conversation were the paths to achieving a lasting peace for Ukraine and Saudi Arabia’s role in this process,” Yermak noted in a public statement posted to the messaging application Telegram. “We also had a meeting with National Security Advisor, Minister of State, Member of the Saudi Arabian Government Musaed Bin Mohammed al-Aiban. We exchanged views on the concept of security guarantees for Ukraine.”
Yermak reportedly emphasized in those meetings that Saudi Arabia “plays a leading role in peace initiatives for Ukraine.”
“Ukraine is extremely grateful for Saudi Arabia’s determined commitment to helping achieve a sustainable and just peace for our country,” he asserted, according to Ukrinform.
Prince Khalid bin Salman, the defense minister, independently confirmed his meeting with the Ukrainian visitors in remarks posted to the social media site Twitter, offering vaguely that the two sides discussed “several topics of mutual interest.”
While the officials met with Ukrainian representatives, the crown prince of the country, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, announced on Wednesday that he had received a letter from Putin “regarding bilateral relations.” The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which confirmed receipt of the letter, did not elaborate on the nature of the correspondence.
Mohammed bin Salman was among the first world leaders receiving a call from Putin following the Alaska summit. The Russian strongman reportedly called the next week to “brief” the Saudi de facto leader, who reportedly expressed “continued support for diplomatic dialogue as a means of resolving international disputes.”
Saudi Arabia last served as a platform for dialogue to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine in March, hosting American and Russian leaders for talks that would eventually result in the Alaska summit. The two sides declared those talks “productive and focused” and Trump himself appeared pleased enough with the host to float Saudi Arabia as a potential venue for his meeting with Trump.
“We ultimately expect to meet,” Trump mused at the time, referring to Putin. “In fact, we expect that he’ll come here, and I’ll go there, and we’re going to meet also, probably in Saudi Arabia. The first time we’ll meet in Saudi Arabia.”
Riyadh rapidly “expresse[d] its welcome to hosting the summit,” though the initial meeting ultimately took place on U.S. soil.
Zelensky, in remarks this week, suggested Saudi Arabia as one of several hosts for a potential meeting between himself and Putin, including other states friendly to both sides such as Turkey, and potentially a European host. Zelensky has enthusiastically campaigned for a meeting with Putin to negotiate terms to an end for the invasion, but the Russian government has balked at participating in such an event.
“President Putin said clearly that he is ready to meet provided this meeting is really going to have an agenda, presidential agenda,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in remarks to NBC News on August 22, insisting that such an agenda did not yet exist. “Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all.”
Lavrov also condemned conversations about offering Ukraine security guarantees from Russia that did not include Russia in separate remarks, calling them a “road to nowhere.”
