US and Russia end first talks without Ukraine, Moscow with new demands

US and Russian officials held more than four hours of talks in Riyadh on Tuesday, their first on ending the war in Ukraine, as Kiev and its European allies looked on anxiously from the sidelines and Moscow raised a new demand.

The Interfax news agency quoted Russian negotiator Yuri Ushakov as saying that the talks went well and conditions for a meeting between presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin were discussed.

Ushakov said a summit was unlikely to take place next week. But the talks in the Saudi capital underscored the rapid pace of U.S. efforts to defuse the conflict, less than a month after Trump took office and six days after he spoke by phone with Putin.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters in Moscow that it was "not enough" for NATO not to accept Ukraine as a member, the Telegraph reports.

She said the alliance should go further by reneging on a promise it made at a summit in Bucharest in 2008, that Kiev would join at a future, unspecified date.

"Otherwise, this problem will continue to poison the atmosphere on the European continent," she said.

Read too Riyadh meeting ends, US and Russia agree to appoint teams to work on the path to ending the war in Ukraine

There was no immediate response from NATO members or the United States.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly called for NATO membership as the only way to guarantee Kiev's sovereignty and independence from its nuclear-armed neighbor.

He and European leaders are concerned that Trump could make a hasty deal with Moscow that ignores their security interests, rewards Russia for its invasion and leaves Putin free to threaten Ukraine or other countries in the future.

Critics say the Trump team, by ruling out Ukraine's NATO membership and saying Kiev's desire to regain all lost territory is an illusion, has made major concessions in advance. U.S. officials say they are simply recognizing reality.

Ukraine says no peace deal can be made in its name.

"We, as a sovereign country, simply will not be able to accept any agreement without us," Zelensky said last week. /Telegraph