Today, I get to talk about some really great news. We should all be absolutely thrilled that officials from the United States and Russia are finally sitting down and talking. The meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday that is being endlessly derided by the mainstream media was actually an extremely positive development. I love the fact that the Trump administration is trying to find a peaceful way out of this mess. Despite what the mainstream media is telling us, this is precisely what should be happening. And we better hope that negotiations with Russia eventually succeed, because this is our last best hope for peace. If the negotiations fail, the alternative is World War III.
According to ABC News, the talks between U.S. and Russian officials lasted for approximately five hours…
High-level delegations from the U.S. and Russia held talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday over the fate of Ukraine, the negotiations taking place without Kyiv’s participation.
The State Department said the talks were aimed to discuss ending the three-year-long war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022 and followed sustained cross-border aggression from Moscow since 2014.
Tuesday’s meeting in Riyadh concluded after around five hours, according to the press pool covering the meeting, with the State Department saying the discussions represented “an important step forward” toward “enduring peace.”
These talks were not designed to produce a peace agreement.
Rather, they were intended to put us on a path toward negotiating a peace agreement.
Thankfully, it appears that goal was achieved. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that four key principles were agreed upon during the meeting…
Rubio said that the U.S. and Russians agreed on four principles during their meeting as they start the initial steps toward a deal.
First, he said the U.S. and Moscow will work to reestablish their respective diplomatic missions in each other’s countries so they can move forward with more communication.
Second, Rubio said the U.S. will appoint a high-level team to help negotiate, and third, they will begin to discuss geopolitical and economic cooperation that could help resolve the conflict.
Fourth, he said that the five people who were involved in the first meeting will remain engaged, so they know it is moving along ‘in a productive way.’
All of that is great.
We are now in a far better position than we were under the Biden administration.
But the truth is that the two sides are still miles apart on what an end to the war in Ukraine will look like.
After the meeting, U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce explained that the ultimate goal will be to come up with an agreement that will be “acceptable to all sides”…
Bruce said Rubio and Lavrov had agreed to appoint “high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible in a way that is enduring, sustainable, and acceptable to all sides.” Rubio said the respective embassies in Washington and Moscow would need to be re-staffed, as “we’re going to need to have vibrant diplomatic missions that are able to function normally in order to be able to continue these conduits.”
A deal that will be “acceptable to all sides” certainly sounds good, but from my perspective it will be nearly impossible to achieve.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy doesn’t seem to understand that he is losing the war. He has been steadily losing territory and any rational leader in his position would be quite eager to go to the negotiating table. But instead, he is greatly upset that the U.S. would dare to talk to the Russians, and he is pledging to never “accept Russia’s ultimatums”…
‘I wonder why they believe Ukraine would accept all these ultimatums now if we refused them at the most difficult moment,’ the Ukrainian President said, referring to Kyiv’s refusal to bow to Moscow’s demands during crisis talks at the start of the war.
‘As President of Ukraine, I have never given any guarantees to anyone or confirmed anything. Moreover, I have never intended to accept Russia’s ultimatums. And I am not going to,’ Zelensky said.
Zelenskyy will not move from his position that Ukraine must be allowed to join NATO, and he wants 200,000 western troops in his country once this is all over.
But keeping western troops and western missiles out of Ukraine is one of the key issues for the Russians, and Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova just reaffirmed the fact that the Russians will never allow Ukraine to join NATO…
After the meeting, the Russians issued their own set of demands as the negotiations move forward.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that NATO membership for Ukraine is unacceptable to Moscow.
She added: ‘It is worth noting that a refusal to accept Kyiv into NATO is not enough. The alliance must disavow the Bucharest promises of 2008.’
How in the world will those two positions be bridged?
I honestly have no idea.
Even more sticky is the matter of captured territory.
The Ukrainians are freaking out because the Russians may be allowed “to keep some of the 20% of Ukraine it has occupied”…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders expressed alarm and dismay at being shut out of the talks Riyadh. One of Kyiv’s main concerns is that Russia will be given the go-ahead to keep some of the 20% of Ukraine it has occupied.
I had to laugh when I read that NBC News report.
Anyone that thinks that the Russians are going to hand back all or most of the territory that they have captured is being extremely delusional.
The Russians are winning the war, and they have been steadily capturing more territory in recent months.
Why would they give that territory back?
On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov completely ruled out returning any territory to Ukraine…
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday ruled out territorial concessions to Ukraine, setting out a tough opening stance on the eve of talks on Tuesday with U.S. President Donald Trump’s team in Saudi Arabia.
Unless one side is willing to dramatically change their negotiating position, I see no room to make a deal here.
The Russians have no motivation to concede, because their forces have been moving forward.
And Zelenskyy seems to have lost all touch with reality.
The losers don’t dictate the terms of peace. That is simply not how it works.
Getting the Russians and the Ukrainians to sign a peace agreement now would be the greatest diplomatic achievement in modern history, and I give President Trump a lot of credit for trying to make it happen. Following the talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Trump told the press that he is trying to “save maybe millions of lives”…
“This is something that would have never happened. And I used to discuss it with Putin. President Putin and I used to talk about Ukraine – it was the apple of his eye… I used to tell him ‘don’t go in’ – and he understand that, he understood it fully…I want to see if I can save maybe millions of lives.” You might “end up in World War 3,” Trump warned, if the conflict keeps escalating and with no efforts to make peace.
This is it.
This is our last best hope for peace.
If negotiations ultimately collapse, Trump is likely to get very frustrated.
And when he is frustrated, Trump tends to say very outrageous things.
Let us pray that we do not get to that stage.
In my book entitled “Chaos”, I discussed what World War III would look like.
It would essentially mean the end of our society as we know it today.
So we should support these peace negotiations with all of our hearts, because the alternative truly is unthinkable.
Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written eight other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.