The agenda of the meeting of the Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with American officials in Riyadh on 18 February is devoted to the restoration of the entire range of bilateral relations, as well as the preparation of possible negotiations on the Ukrainian settlement, the Kremlin reported.
Bondarev said that ‘experienced’ Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov acted as the chief negotiators and ‘are undoubtedly loyal to President (Vladimir) Putin so he expects no surprises from them’.
On Thursday, former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev gave his take on the meeting in Riyadh – and it did not cast Trump and the US as dominant in the conversation.
Bondarev, who resigned as a Russian diplomat in May 2022 in protest of the invasion of Ukraine, added that the US has ‘already sacrificed a lot without getting anything form Putin’.
EPA/RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY PRESS / HANDOUT HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES] ‘I think that they also quite sure that they can squeeze Trump into very, very large, huge concessions, even without him knowing that those are concessions,’ opined Bondaraev.
