With China attending, Ukraine peace discussions inch forward

Efforts to forge an international consensus around a durable and fair peace settlement to the war in Ukraine inched forward Saturday after discussions in Saudi Arabia among senior officials from 42 countries, including the US, China, India, and Ukraine.

Ukraine and its Western backers have pitched the talks as an effort to rally global support behind conditions for ending the war that would favor Ukraine. Many big developing countries have been largely neutral on the conflict.

After the talks in Jeddah concluded, diplomats said there was a broad acceptance that central principles of international law, like respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, should be at the heart of future peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. There was agreement on pursuing more detailed work on the global impact of the war, and most countries attending, including China, appeared willing to meet again in the coming weeks in the current format, with Russia excluded, according to people involved in or briefed on the closed-door talks.

The Jeddah talks came after initial discussions in Copenhagen in June. US and European officials have stressed that the discussions aren’t negotiations to end the conflict and won’t seek to prescribe specific terms for a settlement.

The meeting’s location Saturday carried important symbolism, as Ukraine, the US, and Europe have pushed to bolster support for Kyiv in the global south. Western diplomats have said the kingdom was picked to host partly in hopes of persuading China to participate, as Riyadh and Beijing maintain close ties.

Saudi Arabia is trying to play a larger role in diplomacy on Ukraine after the US accused it last year of siding with Russia to keep oil prices high—thus bolstering Moscow’s finances.

“A lot of credit to the Saudi hosts for the diplomatic engagement,” a US official said.

Many Western capitals are deeply skeptical that Russian President Vladimir Putin is interested in pursuing peace talks this year. Russia has shown no signs of backing away from maximalist demands such as the recognition of its annexations of Ukrainian territory, including areas of Ukraine its military doesn’t control.

Moscow has sent mixed signals about the talks. The Kremlin has suggested it would be watching closely, but Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman called the discussions a “hoax.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pushed his ambassadors this week to intensify efforts to win global support for Kyiv’s position. While diplomats talked in Jeddah, Russia launched fresh missile attacks on Ukraine.

“Russia unleashed another salvo of missiles on Ukraine this Saturday. Russia won’t stop until it is stopped,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted. “The global community must focus on enforcing a just and lasting peace.”

The biggest difference between the Copenhagen and Jeddah meetings was attendance—more than twice as many countries attended or dialed into Saturday’s talks. That included European countries, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Turkey, and South Africa.

Most significantly China, which was invited to Copenhagen but stayed away, sent a delegation to Jeddah. Western diplomats said Beijing played a generally constructive role in the talks.

As Russia’s most important foreign ally, China is seen as crucial to building traction behind the talks and potentially offers a way to feed into the discussions some of Moscow’s red lines and concerns, diplomats have said. Saudi Arabia’s top leadership and Ukraine had pushed hard for Beijing to attend.

During the talks, China presented a 12-point plan for a cease-fire and peace talks to end the war, which it first announced in February. European diplomats pushed back to warn that an unconditional cease-fire could simply create a frozen conflict and allow Russia to consolidate its control of Ukrainian territory.

“They got live feedback, which was a good exchange,” said a person familiar with the discussion.

A senior US official said that national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland met with the head of the Chinese delegation, Beijing’s peace envoy Li Hui, on the sidelines.

“It was very good to have the Chinese here,” the US official said.

Diplomats also said some of the differences that emerged in Copenhagen appeared to have narrowed. In those talks, Ukraine pushed for major developing countries to accept Zelenskyy’s peace plan, at the heart of which is a demand that peace begin only when Russian forces fully withdraw, and several developing countries said they wouldn’t do so.

In Jeddah, Ukraine and the major developing countries appeared keener to seek out a consensus. A senior European official said that Ukraine didn’t push again for its peace plan to be accepted and other countries weren’t insisting that Kyiv drop it. Nor was there any crossfire over Ukraine’s demand for the withdrawal of Russian troops. Ukraine didn’t press the point, two diplomats said, nor was it challenged by developing countries.

While no date has been set for a third meeting, there was agreement on a two-track process to move forward. Ukraine will continue discussions with foreign ambassadors in Kyiv on peace conditions. 

Saudi Arabia plans to propose a set of working groups for specific issues raised in the Ukrainian peace plan, some of which touch on the global impact of the war. That could include nuclear safety, environmental spillovers, and food security—a concern underscored in recent days by the collapse of the United Nations-brokered Black Sea grain initiative.

“The consensus is that this isn’t a European war, but has an impact on food, energy, and economic stability globally and that it will take everyone on board to get to the final outcome of a settlement,” said a diplomat from one of the non-Western countries.