JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Senior officials from Ukraine and the United States opened talks Tuesday on how to end Moscow’s three-year war against Kyiv, hours after Russian air defenses shot down 343 Ukrainian drones in the biggest such attack since the Kremlin ordered the full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
Three people were killed and 18 were injured, including three children, in the massive drone attack that spanned 10 Russian regions, officials said. Russia, meanwhile, launched 126 Shahed and other drones and a ballistic missile at Ukraine on Tuesday, the Ukrainian air force said, as part of Moscow's relentless pounding of civilian areas during the war.
In the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, journalists briefly entered a room where a senior Ukrainian delegation met with America’s top diplomat for talks on ending Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio smiled for the cameras and when asked what his expectations for the meeting were, he gave a thumbs up and replied, “Good.”
Across the table, Ukrainian officials, including the country's top diplomat and defense chief, sat without any facial expressions as the meeting got underway at a luxury hotel. There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian or U.S. officials on the drone attack.
However, Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak, who was also taking part in the talks, told reporters that the most important thing was “how to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.” He said security guarantees were important to prevent Russia from invading again in the future.
In 2014, Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine and threw its weight behind pro-Kremlin militias in eastern Ukraine. They seized large swaths of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and fought against Kyiv’s forces for the following eight years.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister was also on hand as American, Saudi and Ukrainian flags stood in the background. Officials did not answer any of the shouted questions.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the United States will inform Russia about the results of the Jeddah talks, which he described as “normal practice.”
Talks bring a chance to mend US-Ukraine relations
The meeting in Jeddah offered an opportunity for Kyiv officials to repair Ukraine’s relationship with the Trump administration after an unprecedented argument erupted during President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Feb. 28 visit to the White House.
Critically, Ukraine needs to persuade Washington to end the U.S. suspension of military aid and some intelligence sharing after the Oval Office blowout. U.S. officials have said that positive talks in Jeddah could mean it may be only a short suspension.
Ukrainian officials told The Associated Press on Monday that they will propose a ceasefire covering the Black Sea, which would bring safer shipping, as well long-range missile strikes that have hit civilians in Ukraine, and the release of prisoners.
The two senior officials said Kyiv is also ready to sign an agreement with the United States on access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals — a deal that U.S. President Donald Trump is keen to secure.
While traveling to Jeddah, Rubio said the U.S. delegation would not be proposing any specific measures to secure an end to the conflict but rather wanted to hear from Ukraine about what they would be willing to consider.
“I’m not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do,” Rubio told reporters accompanying him. “I think we want to listen to see how far they’re willing to go and then compare that to what the Russians want and see how far apart we truly are.”
Rubio said the rare earths and critical minerals deal could be signed during the meeting but stressed it was not a precondition for the United States to move ahead with discussions with either Ukraine or the Russians.
He said it may make more sense to take some time to negotiate the precise details of the agreement, which is now a broad memorandum of understanding that leaves out many specifics.
The Kremlin is sticking to its conditions for peace
The Kremlin has not publicly offered any concessions. Russia has said it’s ready to cease hostilities on condition that Ukraine drops its bid to join NATO and recognizes regions that Moscow occupies as Russian. Russia has captured nearly a fifth of Ukraine's territory since the war began.
Russian forces have held the battlefield momentum for more than a year, though at a high cost in infantry and armor, and are pushing at selected points along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, especially in the eastern Donetsk region, against Ukraine's understrength and weary army.
Ukraine has invested heavily in developing its arms industry, especially high-tech drones that have reached deep into Russia.
Most of the Ukrainian drones fired overnight — 126 of them — were shot down over the Kursk region across the border from Ukraine, parts of which Kyiv’s forces control, and 91 were shot down over the Moscow region, according to a statement by Russia's Defense Ministry.
Moscow's Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said over 70 drones targeted the Russian capital and were shot down as they were flying toward it — the biggest single attack on Moscow so far in the war.
The governor of the Moscow region surrounding the capital, Andrei Vorobyov, said the attack damaged several residential buildings and a number of cars.
Flights were temporarily restricted in and out of six airports, including Domodedovo, Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky just outside Moscow, and airports in the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod regions.
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Associated Press writer Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Matthew Lee, The Associated Press
