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Left out of a meeting between American and Saudi officials, the Ukrainian leader also canceled a trip to Riyadh.
Feb. 18, 2025Updated 3:22 p.m. ET
Shortly after the United States’ groundbreaking meeting with Russian officials on Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine lashed out at the Trump administration’s negotiating tactics in his harshest terms yet for excluding Ukrainians from talks on their own country’s fate.
Speaking after American and Russian officials agreed in Saudi Arabia to establish teams to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine and normalize relations, Mr. Zelensky protested his exclusion from the discussions by canceling his own planned trip there.
The talks in Riyadh ended with upbeat statements from the Russian and American delegations and pledges for closer ties — continuing a thaw in relations that Kyiv and European allies have found unnerving.
“Decisions on how to end the war in Ukraine cannot be made without Ukraine, nor can any conditions be imposed,” Mr. Zelensky said from Turkey, where he had traveled as part of a planned tour of the Middle East. “We were not invited to this Russian-American meeting in Saudi Arabia. It was a surprise for us, I think for many others as well.”
Ukraine, he said, learned of plans for the gathering from the media. Mr. Zelensky suggested that he had intended to meet American officials after the gathering in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on a previously scheduled state visit to Saudi Arabia.
“I don’t know who will stay, who will leave, or who is planning to go where. To be honest, I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t want coincidences, and that’s why I will not go to Saudi Arabia.”
