White House welcomes ‘monumental’ negotiations with Moscow

The Russian-American talks in Riyadh were a “truly monumental step” towards ending the Ukraine conflict, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Tuesday.

The teams, led by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, met earlier that day in Saudi Arabia’s capital to lay the groundwork for a lasting peace between Moscow and Kiev. They also discussed normalization of ties between Russia and the US, which were de facto frozen by the Biden administration in 2022 as part of its strategy to “isolate” Moscow on the world stage.

“This is a truly monumental step towards peace in the Russia-Ukraine war,” Leavitt said. She criticized President Donald Trump’s predecessor, former President Joe Biden, for abandoning diplomacy in favor of a pressure campaign against Russia.

“The previous administration had no negotiations, no discussions, really no diplomacy in this effort,” Leavitt stated…