Ukraine-US talks on ending war with Russia start in Saudi Arabia as Kyiv launches huge drone attack
Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), Mar 11 (AP): High-stakes talks between senior delegations from Ukraine and the United States on how to end Kyiv's three-year war with Moscow opened in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, hours after Russian air defences shot down 337 Ukrainian drones over Russia.
Two people were killed and 18 were injured, including three children, in the massive drone attack that spanned 10 Russian regions, officials said. No large-scale damage was reported.
In the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, journalists briefly entered a room where senior Ukrainian delegation met with America's top diplomat for talks on ending Europe's biggest conflict since World War II.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio smiled for the cameras, while Ukrainian officials sat without expression at a table across from them as the meeting got underway at a luxury hotel.
There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian or US officials on the drone attack.
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister was on hand for the talks as American, Saudi and Ukrainian flags stood in the background. Officials did not answer any of the shouted questions.
The talks offer an opportunity for Kyiv officials to repair Ukraine's relationship with Trump's administration after an unprecedented argument erupted during President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's February 28 visit to the White House.
Critically, Ukraine needs to persuade Washington to end the subsequent US suspension of military aid and some intelligence sharing. US officials have said that positive talks in Jeddah could mean it may be only a short suspension.
Ukrainian officials told The Associated Press on Monday that they will propose a ceasefire covering the Black Sea, which would bring safer shipping, as well long-range missile strikes that have hit civilians in Ukraine, and the release of prisoners.
The two senior officials said Kyiv is also ready to sign an agreement with the United States on access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals — a deal that US President Donald Trump is keen to secure.
On his plane to Jeddah, Rubio said the US delegation would not be proposing any specific measures to secure an end to the three-year conflict but rather wanted to hear from Ukraine about what they would be willing to consider.
“I'm not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do,” Rubio told reporters accompanying him. “I think we want to listen to see how far they're willing to go and then compare that to what the Russians want and see how far apart we truly are.”
Rubio said the rare earths and critical minerals deal could be signed during the meeting but stressed it was not a precondition for the United States to move ahead with discussions with either Ukraine or the Russians.
He said it may, in fact, make more sense to take some time to negotiate the precise details of the agreement, which is now a broad memorandum of understanding that leaves out many specifics.
The Kremlin has not publicly offered any concessions. Russia has said it's ready to cease hostilities on condition that Ukraine drops its bid to join NATO and recognises regions that Moscow occupies as Russian. Russia has captured nearly a fifth of Ukraine's territory since the war began.
Russian forces have held the battlefield momentum for more than a year, though at a high cost in infantry and armour, and are pushing at selected points along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, especially in the eastern Donetsk region, against Ukraine's understrength and weary army.
Ukraine has invested heavily in developing its arms industry, especially high-tech drones that have reached deep into Russia.
Most of the Ukrainian drones fired overnight — 126 of them — were shot down over the Kursk region across the border from Ukraine, parts of which Kyiv's forces control, and 91 were shot down over the Moscow region, according to a statement by Russia's Defence Ministry.
Moscow's Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said over 70 drones targeted the Russian capital and were shot down as they were flying toward it — the biggest single attack on Moscow so far in the war.
The governor of the Moscow region surrounding the capital, Andrei Vorobyov, said the attack damaged several residential buildings and a number of cars.
Another person was wounded on a highway in the Lipetsk region, Gov. Igor Artamonov said.
Sobyanin said the roof of a building in Moscow also sustained damage, which he described as “insignificant”.
Footage of the building, published by RIA Novosti, showed a charred spot on the facade of a multi-story residential building near the roof, with bits of the building's lining stripped off.
Flights were temporarily restricted in and out of six airports, including Domodedovo, Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky just outside Moscow, and airports in the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod regions.
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Nothing changes, India will be paying tariffs; we will not be paying tariffs: Trump after SC ruling
New York/Washington (PTI): US President Donald Trump said “nothing changes” in the trade deal with India in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict against his sweeping tariffs, as he responded to the ruling by announcing an additional 10 per cent global levies on items imported into the US.
In a major setback to Trump’s pivotal economic agenda of his second term, the US Supreme Court, in a 6-3 verdict written by Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled that the tariffs imposed by Trump on nations around the world were illegal and that the President had exceeded his authority when he imposed the sweeping levies.
Trump lashed out at the Supreme Court justices who ruled against him, calling them "fools and lapdogs”. “The Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing, and I'm ashamed of certain members of the Court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what's right for our country,” Trump said in a news conference at the White House Friday, just hours after the verdict came in.
At the news conference, Trump again repeated his claim that he had solved the war between India and Pakistan last summer using the threat of tariffs, asserted that New Delhi, at his request, “pulled way back” from buying Russian oil and said that the ruling would have no effect on the trade deal that Washington and New Delhi announced earlier this month. He also spoke about his “great” relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
ALSO READ: Supreme Court strikes down Trump's sweeping tariffs, upending central plank of economic agenda
When asked whether the framework for an interim agreement on trade with India, expected to be signed soon, stands in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, Trump said “nothing changes”.
“Nothing changes. They'll (India) be paying tariffs, and we will not be paying tariffs. So deal with India is they pay tariffs. This is a reversal for what it used to be. As you know, India and I think Prime Minister Modi is a great gentleman, a great man, actually, but he was much smarter than the people that he was against in terms of the United States, he was ripping us off. So we made a deal with India. It's a fair deal now, and we are not paying tariffs to them, and they are paying tariffs. We did a little flip,” Trump said.
“The India deal is on…all the deals are on, we're just going to do it” in a different way, Trump said.
To another question on his relationship with India, he said, “I think my relationship with India is fantastic and we're doing trade with India. India pulled out of Russia. India was getting its oil from Russia. And they pulled way back at my request because we want to settle that horrible war where 25,000 people are dying every month,” Trump said.
He said his relationship with Prime Minister Modi “is, I would say, great.”
Trump then went on to repeat the claim, twice within the press conference, that he stopped the war between India and Pakistan using tariffs.
“I also stopped the war between India and Pakistan. As you know, there were 10 planes were shot down. That war was going and probably going nuclear. And just yesterday, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said President Trump saved 35 million lives by getting them to stop,” Trump said.
“And I did it largely with tariffs. I said, ‘Look, you're going to fight, that's fine, but you're not going to do business with the United States, and you're going to pay a 200% tariff, each country’. And they called up and they said, ‘we have made peace’,” Trump said.
On Thursday, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif attended the inaugural meeting of Trump’s Board of Peace on Gaza. At that meeting, Trump had said he threatened to put 200 per cent tariffs on India and Pakistan if they didn’t stop the fighting, reiterating the claim he stopped the war between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Earlier this month, as the US and India announced they reached a framework for an Interim Agreement on trade, Trump issued an Executive Order removing the 25 per cent punitive tariffs imposed on India for its purchases of Russian oil, with the US President noting the commitment by New Delhi to stop directly or indirectly importing energy from Moscow and purchasing American energy products.
Under the trade deal, Washington would charge a reduced reciprocal tariff on New Delhi, lowering it from 25 per cent to 18 per cent.
In his remarks at the press conference, Trump said he used tariffs to end the war between India and Pakistan, as he lashed out at the Supreme Court for its decision to strike down his sweeping tariffs imposed on countries around the world.
“Tariffs have likewise been used to end five of the eight wars that I settled. I settled eight wars, whether you like it or not, including India, Pakistan, big ones, nuclear, could have been nuclear,” Trump said.
“Prime Minister of Pakistan said yesterday at the great meeting that we had the peace board. He said yesterday that President Trump could have saved 35 million lives by getting us to stop fighting. They were getting ready to do some bad things. But they've given us great national security, these tariffs have,” he said.
Within hours of the Supreme Court ruling, Trump signed a Proclamation imposing a “temporary import duty” to “address fundamental international payments problems and “continue the Administration’s work to rebalance our trade relationships to benefit American workers, farmers, and manufacturers.”
The Proclamation imposes, for a period of 150 days, a 10 per cent ad valorem import duty on articles imported into the United States. The temporary import duty will take effect on February 24 at 12:01 a.m.
