The delegations of Ukraine and the United States held hours-long closed-door talks in Saudi Arabia's Jeddah on Tuesday to find a path towards ending Kyiv's ongoing war with Russia.
The talks were held a day after Ukraine launched a massive overnight drone attack on 10 Russian regions, killing two people and injuring 18 others.
According to a report by the Associated Press, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio smiled for the cameras, while Ukrainian officials sat without expression at a table across from them.
The talks have offered Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to repair his relationship with his US counterpart Donald Trump after the White House blowout on February 28.
The showdown has led to Trump pausing all military assistance and intelligence sharing with Kyiv.
The AP quoted two senior Ukraine officials as saying that Kyiv is ready to sign an agreement which gives the US access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals. Trump was keen on securing the deal, but Zelenskiy's Oval Office clash with him left the signing of the deal in limbo.
'Deal not a pre-condition for talks'
Rubio, however, asserted that signing the deal was not a pre-condition for the US to move ahead with discussions with either Ukraine or the Russians.
"I'm not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do. I think we want to listen to see how far they're willing to go and then compare that to what the Russians want and see how far apart we truly are," he said ahead of the meeting.
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The Ukraine delegation to Jeddah was led by Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy's chief of staff.
According to reports, the Ukraine side, led by Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy's chief of staff, is likely to propose a ceasefire covering the Black Sea.
What Russia wants
Though Russia has not publicly offered any consensus, Moscow wants Ukraine to drop its bid to join NATO and recognise the regions that Moscow occupies as Russian.
Russia has annexed a fifth of Ukraine's territory ever since the war began in 2022.
