President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, working to repair his strained relationship with the United States and secure a favorable deal to end his country’s war with Russia, was scheduled to meet on Monday with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia.
The meeting between Mr. Zelensky and Prince Mohammed, the de facto Saudi leader, who has sought to take a central role on the world’s diplomatic stage, comes ahead of talks planned for Tuesday between Ukrainian and U.S. officials in the oil-rich Gulf state.
The crown prince, once shunned internationally because of accusations of human rights abuses that he has denied, has positioned his country as a middleman in efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Last year, Saudi Arabia played a pivotal role in a complex U.S.-Russia prisoner swap, and President Trump has suggested it could be the site of a possible meeting between him and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Last month, Mr. Zelensky postponed a trip to Saudi Arabia after it hosted an extraordinary meeting of the U.S. secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, in which the two sides sought to reset their relationship and discussed the war in Ukraine, without Mr. Zelensky.
But on Saturday, Mr. Zelensky said on social media that he would visit Saudi Arabia, declaring that he was “determined to do everything to end this war with a just and lasting peace.”
“Ukraine has been seeking peace from the very first second of this war,” he wrote of the full-scale conflict, which began with Russia’s invasion three years ago. “Realistic proposals are on the table. The key is to move quickly and effectively.”
Mr. Zelensky added that he would not attend the talks with U.S. officials, but the Ukrainian delegation would include the country’s foreign and defense ministers, a top military official and the president’s chief of staff.
Mr. Zelensky is under intense pressure from the Trump administration to agree to a peace deal, and he has appeared to recalibrate his message after Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance angrily assailed him 10 days ago in the Oval Office over what they described as a lack of gratitude for U.S. support.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that Mr. Zelensky does not “have the cards” given Russia’s military strength, and has all but demanded that Ukraine accept diplomatic terms set by the United States for a resolution of the war. Still, there are signs that Ukraine’s position on the battlefield is improving: Ukrainian troops have in recent months stalled a Russian offensive and in some places won back small patches of land.
Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s special envoy to the Middle East, has said that Mr. Zelensky’s deferential posture after the blowup in the White House has improved Ukraine’s standing with American officials. Nonetheless, the U.S. has paused military support for Ukraine.
Mr. Zelensky wrote on Saturday that he was “fully committed to constructive dialogue” and that he hoped to “discuss and agree on the necessary decisions and steps” during his visit to Saudi Arabia. Mr. Rubio will be in the seaside Saudi city of Jeddah for talks with Ukrainian officials from Monday through Wednesday, according to the U.S. State Department, and was expected to meet with Prince Mohammed after arriving on Monday evening.
Mr. Trump’s position on Russia and Ukraine has sometimes been hard to pin down. On Friday, he said on social media that he was considering significant sanctions on Russia to help force a peace deal on Ukraine. He demanded that the two countries “get to the table right now, before it is too late.”
Hours later, he told reporters at the White House that he felt talks with Russia were going well and that he was “finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine.”
