Probably, or maybe not, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special negotiator, will go to Moscow, supposedly to small Russian president Vladimir Putin. Right then Witkoff is in Riyadh with the rest of the US group in discussions with the Ukrainians.
The Russians have not confirmed any Witkoff attend.
Those conversations are supposed to get Ukraine’s heat on President Trump’s peace program. The administration has been saying that any deal did involve concessions from both sides, but Ukraine will have to offer up country.
What makes the Riyadh discussions ( I choose not to call the meeting a negotiation ) bizarre is that Vladimir Zelensky did not attend the talks.
Zelensky is in Riyadh. He met with Saudi Arabia’s actual head, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Sultan. What they talked about is anyone’s guess. Evidently he stayed on after that meeting, and may be across the house from where the meeting took place.
It is fair to ask how come Zelensky is not at the appointment and how come he is hanging about. The committee in the conference was, of course, consult with him during the cuts, and Zelensky was give guidelines.
The , Duran says , that Washington did not like Zelensky at the Riyadh meet. This is quite suspicious.
According to the latest from Riyadh, Ukraine says it is available for a 30 day continue fire. If this is what Washington “extracted” from the Ukrainians, it is technically irrelevant. With Russia on the verge of winning in Kursk and abroad, the Russians didn’t take any such offer. If it is a ploy to help the US to resume arms supplies to Ukraine, knowing Russia may accept it, the so-called peace program is a useless letter.
]After this was published, Washington announced it was resuming hands selling to Ukraine. The rest is history. ]
On the early morning before the Riyadh meeting, Ukraine launched a massive drone attack on Russia, with Moscow and the Moscow region ( along the drone approaches ) hit hard. The Ukrainians used internally produced Palianytsia which carries a 50 kg weapon and is travel 600km at about 800 mph. It is claimed that Palianytsia can operate without needing a man in the loop ( meaning now real time communications ), but this seems unlikely as , video of take downs , of Ukrainian drones using jammers have appeared online.
Immediately 337 robots were shot down, according to Moscow, by a combination of Soviet air threats and jammers. The Russians did not report how some robots were launched by the Ukrainians or how many got through and hit their targets. Complicating matters is that a helicopter that is hit may also drop and destroy property or kill or wound people.
Of the 337 picture down, here is an finance, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense:
91 UAVs – over the place of the Moscow area,
126 UAVs – over the place of the Kursk area,
38 UAVs – over the place of the Bryansk place,
25 UAVs – over the place of the Belgorod place,
22 UAVs – over the place of the Ryazan place,
10 UAVs – over the place of the Kaluga area,
8 UAVs – over the place of the Lipetsk area,
8 UAVs – over the place of the Oryol area,
6 UAVs – over the place of the Voronezh place,
3 UAVs – over the place of the Nizhny Novgorod place.
Most of the goals appear to have been flat blocks, some rail ranges, at least one gas storage ability, and others not yet reported. The number of killed and wounded also is not already available.
It was controversial for Kiev to release these attacks, although they had explanation in that the strikes had been called hostile, at the moment of the conference in Riyadh. The choice to do so appears to have been taken because Ukraine is close to being firmly defeated in Kursk and is trying to cover up that battle by deflecting interest from it.
Given the choice to come back at the very instant of the conversations in Riyadh even served as a sort of caution to Washington. Ukraine’s true mantra is to keep fighting no matter what the price.
This explains why it is unlikely in the extreme that there will be a peace procedure, no matter how little Washington wants one, or says it does.
Very possibly, the outcome of the war will be on the field, not then.
This leaves Washington and Europe with no real leave. Europe knows that if it tries to save Ukraine with Euro/NATO troops, a common war will start and the Russians may attack NATO’s installations and try and punish those states backing for a mission, particularly the UK, France and even Germany. In such a case, as President Trump has made clear, the US will not come to the rescue, at least not right away.
There is one interesting development that suggests there may be a way to enforce a deal. The new head of the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe, Secretary General Feridun Sinirlioglu, visited Moscow the day before the attack, and was shown the results of the drone attack by the Russians.
Relations between the OSCE and Russia have been very bad for a number of years. Apparently Sinirlioglu wants to change that. Sergey Lavrov, who met with Sinirlioglu in Moscow, was upbeat on the potential for change.
What does this have to do with peace in Ukraine? OSCE was the security overseer of the Minsk Accords in 2014 and 2015. Could Moscow be thinking about a return engagement either with a sanctioned peace deal, or some arrangement in future if Russia wins the war? Time will tell.
A key point is that the presence of OSCE ( where Russia has a veto ) obviates the need for any other peacekeepers, European, NATO or otherwise. This may be at least one plan Moscow has in its back pocket.
Meanwhile Russia continues pressing Ukraine’s army, gaining ground. If Russia forces Ukraine’s army into surrendering, the game is over. Then it is Russia’s problem figuring out what to do with a hostile population and a wrecked infrastructure.
Stephen Bryen is a special correspondent to Asia Times and former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. This article, which originally appeared on his Substack newsletter , Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.