March 21 (UPI) -- Ukrainian and U.S. officials will meet in Saudi Arabia for talks on ending the war with Russia on Monday, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The structure would include technical teams from both sides, initially to clarify the terms of an energy and infrastructure cease-fire, Zelensky told reporters at a news conference in Oslo on Thursday with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Store, saying he understood the meeting would be followed by a U.S. diplomatic effort to close any gaps with Moscow.
He said Ukraine would bring forward a list of objects it considered civilian infrastructure that would be out of bounds to avoid having an approach that was at variance with what he hoped "the parties agree upon" next week.
However, Zelensky criticized Russian pre-conditions that the United States halt all military assistance to Ukraine, including intelligence-sharing, and for Ukraine to be prohibited from mobilizing its forces within its own territory, saying Moscow "must stop making unnecessary demands that only prolong the war."
He also lamented that Russia had already notched up a big win in getting the question of Ukraine's membership of NATO taken off the table.
"Unfortunately, we are not being taken into NATO. We really want to join. We believe that this would solve many problems but the United States, as the main ally in NATO, does not support Ukraine in NATO.
"I believe that you can't just give it away to the Russians. I believe that it is a great gift that they are removing this topic from the negotiations. I just think it's not right."
Russia confirmed it would attend separate talks with the United States in Riyadh on Monday, dispatching an "expert group" of negotiators led by Russian Senator Grigory Karasin and Sergey Beseda, adviser to the head of Russian intelligence, the FSB Federal Security Service.
Federation Council Committee on International Affairs deputy chairman Sergei Kislyak told Izvestia the focus of the meeting would be the possible resumption of the 2022 Black Sea initiative that allowed the unhindered passage of Russian shipments of fertilizer exports and Ukrainian grain exports. Russia terminated the agreement in July 2023 after two extensions of the original 120-day duration over Western sanctions it said were unfairly limiting its exports.
Kislyak said the team would not be swayed from Moscow's position that the EU's "bellicose rhetoric" disqualified it from a place at the table, Kyiv was not ready to make concessions and that the United States needed to listen to Russia's demand it stops providing Ukraine with military assistance and military intelligence.
Zelensky also ruled out the United States taking ownership of Ukraine's besieged power plants as a protective measure, in particular the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in southeastern Ukraine, saying it was the state-owned property of the Ukrainian people, which was in the midst of very severe technical challenges caused by Russia's illegal seizure of the plant.
"If it does not belong to Ukraine, it won't work for anyone. It would be illegal," he said.
But Zelensky said that Kyiv was open to U.S. efforts to find a solution, referring to discussions on the issue during an hour-long call with U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday held to update Zelensky on a call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"If Americans want to take the power station from the Russians and they want to invest there to modernize it, that is a completely different issue and we are open to discussing it. But the question of property ownership, we definitely did not discuss it."
Zelensky dismissed media reports that the United States taking over the entire sector was discussed as the best way to protect Ukrainian infrastructure and provide support for its energy infrastructure, saying it was mostly state-owned and that integration of Ukraine's power generation with Europe's energy grid provided Ukraine with "serious energy security guarantees."
