A new important meeting between Russia and the US is expected on Wednesday, March 12.
"Tomorrow /b.r. Wednesday/ we have a big meeting with Russia. "And hopefully, excellent talks will follow," noted US President Donald Trump after the meeting in Doha between delegations from Washington and Kiev, without going into details.
At that meeting, Ukraine agreed to a 30-day ceasefire, "if the Russian side agrees to abide by it," and the US restored the transfer of intelligence information and the provision of defense assistance to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
According to Trump, Washington seeks to help, above all, to stop the bloodshed in Ukraine. The conflict is taking the lives of Russians and Ukrainians, Trump said.
"And these are people, just like you. These are people. And we want to stop the hostilities," the president assured, answering questions from American reporters. "And we also don't want to give away billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. We've already spent $350 billion on Ukraine," the president emphasized. "And there was no reason... This war would never have happened if I had been president of the United States for the previous four years," Trump claimed.
He stressed that Russia was "easier to deal with than Ukraine." According to him, it should have been the other way around.
The US administration will resume providing security assistance to Ukraine under the PDA (Presidential Drawdown Authority) mechanism, which allows the US president to issue an order to supply weapons to a foreign partner without congressional approval in the event of an emergency, US National Security Advisor Mike Walz said.
“I will refer you to the Department of Defense on what kind of ammunition this is, but we are talking about the current PDA that will be given to the Ukrainians“, referring to the aid packages announced by the previous Joe Biden administration.
He said that the issue of the exchange of prisoners of war and detainees between Russia and Ukraine was discussed at the meeting in Jeddah. "Military action must stop, we agreed on that today", said the advisor to the American leader.
"We went from "if the war ends" to "how the war ends". And that was an important first step", added Walz.
A bilateral agreement on mineral resources in Ukraine will be signed when the United States deems it convenient. This was stated at a briefing by the head of the cabinet of Volodymyr Zelensky Andriy Yermak.
According to him, on the Ukrainian side "everything is ready for this" and even the persons who should sign the document have been determined. Ermak explained that the US and Ukraine “simply confirmed the intentions of both sides for this to happen.”
The signing of the minerals agreement was postponed after Zelensky got into an argument with US President Donald Trump at the White House on February 28. Ermak did not directly mention the incident at the briefing, but noted that “between friends, sometimes different conversations arise.”
Meanwhile, it became clear that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte will visit the US on March 12-14 and meet with President Donald Trump on March 13, the NATO press service reported.
The topics of the talks were not disclosed. This meeting has not been announced in advance.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that he would hold a summit on March 15 to discuss the situation in Ukraine. "I will bring leaders together this Saturday to discuss the next steps. We stand ready to help end this war on a just and lasting basis so that Ukraine can enjoy its freedom," the statement said.
German Foreign Minister Analene Baerbock commented on the social network X that the US-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia could be a "turning point on the path to peace."