As US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says, “the ball is now in Russia’s court”. This is a significant moment.
The joint statement from the US and Ukraine, after a long day of talks in Jeddah, contains several key lines, perhaps none more important than this: “The United States will communicate to Russia that Russian reciprocity is the key to achieving peace.”
We’ve heard a lot, in recent weeks, about what Donald Trump expects from Ukraine and what sort of blunt instruments the White House has used to bend Kyiv to its will.
Now, it seems, it’s time for Russia’s intentions to be tested, in public.
Donald Trump’s dealings with Vladimir Putin have so far been shrouded in uncertainty, with no obvious sign of pressure to balance that being exerted on Volodymyr Zelensky.
Tuesday’s US-Ukrainian statement doesn’t imply that Mr Trump has suddenly changed his tune towards Mr Zelensky. Theirs is a thorny relationship, born of many years of mutual mistrust.
But the ugly cloud of acrimony generated by that fractious Oval Office encounter 11 days ago may start to dissipate as the real business of peace-making gets under way.
With the immediate resumption of US intelligence sharing and security assistance to Ukraine, after a suspension that lasted mere days, it’s Russia that may now be feeling the pressure.
These are still early days, with a mass of detail to be settled in subsequent negotiations.
The statement speaks of “substantive details” on a permanent end to the war and the sort of guarantees Ukraine can expect “for their long-term security and prosperity”.
But the wording of the last paragraph echoes Washington’s view that security and prosperity can be achieved through the conclusion of the much-discussed critical minerals deal, rather than the sort of concrete military assurances Kyiv has been seeking.
Zelensky and Trump, it says, have agreed to strike a deal “as soon as possible”. How a purely commercial arrangement can prevent hostile Russian action in the future is something that still has to be fleshed out.
The statement also says the Ukrainian delegation “reiterated that European partners shall be involved in the peace process”, but sheds no light on how Washington views the likely parameters of European involvement.
The meeting in Saudi Arabia feels like a timely reset after the turbulence of recent days. It doesn’t mean that the US and Ukraine are fully aligned on the way forward.
If President Zelensky ever had any doubts, he now knows that he’s dealing with a capricious, volatile American president for whom past loyalties and traditional diplomatic behaviour mean very little.
He’ll do what he can to keep the ball in Russia’s court, but he knows there’s every chance it could end up back in his.
