With Russia and the US finally sitting down for negotiations, we now live in a slightly more normal world
It is already certain that the high-level Russian-American meeting in the Saudi capital Riyadh will have a place in the history books.
Together with a recent telephone conversation between presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump and statements made in Germany by US vice president JD Vance and secretary of defense Pete Hegseth, the Riyadh talks show that something very dangerous has ended: namely the bizarre period of non-communication between the world’s two largest nuclear powers that had been imposed by US obstructionism.
We are now in a – slightly – more normal world again, where Washington has returned to the minimum requirement of diplomacy: maintaining dialogue, as Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has highlighted in his briefing after the meeting. Moreover, US representatives have explicitly acknowledged that such talks should reflect the national interest of the participating states. That is another important and potentially very promising return, namely to both capital-R Realism – as a way of thinking about international relations – and realism as such, as the healthy habit of not fantasizing. Lavrov noted that aspect as well.
The question that is harder to answer is what precisely has just begun in Riyadh (and, clearly, nothing has been finished yet). Because there can be no doubt that something has started: According to Lavrov, the talks were “very useful,” characterized by not merely “hearing” but actually “listening to” each other. That is not formal phraseology. Clearly, Moscow feels that this has, at the very least, not been a dead end. And we are not hearing anything to the contrary from the American side. So far, so good.
We all know what could be starting: obviously, the end of the Ukraine War. Beyond that, both Russia and the new US leadership have declared an interest in a broader normalization of their relationship, call it détente 2.0, if you wish. This, in turn, could affect international politics more generally. And finally, there is an economic aspect that both sides clearly treat as no less important than politics alone.
In terms of geopolitics, there is one thing Washington should not expect: any attempts to drive a wedge between Russia and its current allies and partners will fail. Moscow has already made it clear that, for instance, its relationship with Iran is not up for grabs.
Regarding the economics, it is striking that at the same moment when Moscow’s sending of Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) head Kirill Dmitriev to Riyadh shows that the US and Russia may well leave the idiocy of Western economic warfare behind, EU commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis has signaled that his politically powerless and economically anemic bloc will stick to vastly self-harming sanctions. Well, good luck with that. And also, it won’t last.
Current, desperate EU attempts to be even more bellicist than the US and cobble together a coalition of the obstinate to keep the Ukraine War going even without US support are unimpressive. It’s simple: Even with American commitment, the West and Ukraine’s Zelensky regime have been defeated by Russia. Without it, the defeat would only get more catastrophic. And then, Lavrov has also been clear that Russia will not agree to any backhanded introduction of NATO troops as “peacekeepers.”
And here is the final take-away point from Riyadh: Locking out the NATO-EU European “elites” and the Zelensky regime works and promotes results, cooperation, and peace. Perhaps, the populations of both EU-Europe and Ukraine should start excluding their “elites” as well.
