Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he was briefed on the outcome of Russia-US talks in Saudi Arabia and was pleased with the results, according to Russian news agencies, amid soaring tensions between the United States and Ukraine.
“Yes, I have been informed. I rate them highly, there are results,” he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency on Wednesday. “In my opinion, we made the first step to restore work in various areas of mutual interests”.
US and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for the first high-level talks between the two countries since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago.
The meeting signified a dramatic policy shift by Washington, which imposed a raft of sanctions and worked to isolate Moscow on the world stage over the war.
Ukraine and European governments were not invited to the talks in Riyadh, heightening their concern that Russia and the US might cut a deal that ignores their vital interests.
Russian leader ‘would like to meet Trump’
Putin said that Ukraine was not being excluded from negotiations to end the war, but that his country needed to build trust with the United States in order to resolve the conflict.
“No one is excluding Ukraine,” Putin said in a televised meeting with journalists in Saint Petersburg, adding that there was no need for a “hysterical” reaction to the US-Russia talks.
“It is impossible to solve many issues, including the Ukrainian crisis, without increasing the level of trust between Russia and the United States,” he said.
He added that he would like to meet US President Donald Trump in person but that the meeting would need to be prepared.
Putin also claimed Russia had never rejected talks with the Europeans, and it was they who had refused to talk to Moscow.
“We are not imposing anything on anyone. We are ready, I have already said this a hundred times – if they want, please, let these negotiations take place. And we will be ready to return to the table for negotiations,” he said.
While striking a conciliatory tone, Putin also suggested Europe may have coordinated a Ukrainian drone attack on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) in southern Russia on Monday.
The strike hit a pumping station on the oil pipeline in Russia, reducing flows from Kazakhstan to world markets pumped by Western firms including Chevron and ExxonMobil.
The Russian president said that he did not believe Ukraine to have organised such an attack on its own, and claimed it was likely backed by Western intelligence.
Zelenskyy a ‘dictator without elections’
As Moscow and Washington reignited diplomatic ties, relations between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy deteriorated rapidly on Wednesday as the two leaders traded barbs.
Trump called Zelenskyy “a dictator without elections” in comments posted on the social media app Truth Social. “Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” he added.
The US president also accused the Ukrainian leader of wanting “to keep the ‘gravy train’ going” as Ukraine mismanages billions of dollars US funds for the war, half of which he claimed had gone “missing.”
The comments came hours after Zelenskyy had said Trump was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space” as a result of the talks in Riyadh.
Trump earlier suggested Ukraine was to blame for Russia’s invasion. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine,” the US president said at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Claims of ground offensive in Kursk rejected
In his remarks, Putin also announced that Russian troops crossed into Ukraine from the Kursk region overnight and were advancing along the line of contact, near the border with Ukraine’s Sumy region.
The claim was swiftly rejected by Andriy Kovalenko, a Ukrainian official responsible for countering disinformation.
“Putin’s information about a large-scale Russian offensive is a lie,” he said, adding that a Russian reconnaissance unit had tried to cross but had been destroyed.
A ground attack on Ukraine’s Sumy region would be the first since Russia retreated from there in 2022.
