Donald Trump announces second round of Ukraine peace talks with Russian diplomats

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US President Donald Trump has announced a new phase of Ukraine war ceasefire talks between American and Russian delegations in a statement released through the national broadcaster C-Span.

Trump said the talks would go ahead in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on 25 February, a week after the first round which took place in the same city on Tuesday.

After the meeting, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the two sides had broadly agreed to pursue three key objectives: to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow; to establish a high-level team to support Ukraine peace negotiations; and to explore stronger ties and economic collaboration.

He noted, though, that the discussions, which were attended by his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and other top Russian officials, were just the start of a conversation and there's still a lot of work to be done.

Lavrov described the meeting as "very useful".

No Ukrainian officials were at the meeting, which comes as the country is losing ground to Russian troops, nearly three years after Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbour.

The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said his country wouldn't accept any outcome from the talks as Kyiv wasn't involved and he delayed his trip to Saudi Arabia that was scheduled for last Wednesday.

Australian allies have also expressed dismay that they're being left out.

Trump-Putin summit

At the moment, Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov has said that arrangements are being made for a face-to-face meeting between Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, which marks a significant change from the Western world's previous isolation of Moscow over its involvement in the conflict in Ukraine.

Talking to Russian state media, Ryabkov said a possible Trump-Putin summit could cover a wide range of global topics, not just the conflict in Ukraine.

"He mentioned moving towards normalising relations between our countries, looking at ways to resolve the most pressing and potentially very, very hazardous situations, with Ukraine being one of them," he said.

But he said efforts to arrange such a meeting are in their infancy and that making it happen will require "the most intensive preparatory work."

That first round of peace talks prompted European allies to rally behind Zelenskyy, concerned about Trump's perceived shift towards Moscow and worries that peace negotiations would occur without Ukraine's direct participation and benefiting Russia.

On Friday, Trump seemed to backtrack on his previous comments that incorrectly pinned the blame on Kyiv for starting the conflict, but maintained that Zelenskyy and former President Joe Biden should have done more to reach an understanding with Putin.

"Russia attacked, but they should've stopped him attacking," he said during a radio interview with Brian Kilmeade of Fox News, referring to the Russian leader.

Russia's military crossed the border on 24 February, 2022, in a full-scale invasion that Putin claimed was necessary to safeguard Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine and prevent the country from joining NATO.