US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the situation in Ukraine and efforts to remove “unilateral barriers” set by former US President Joe Biden’s administration on Saturday, Reuters reported.
They also focused on ways to improve US-Russia relations, including removing obstacles to trade, economic cooperation, and investment, and working toward ending the strained bilateral relations between the two countries.
US and Russian officials are expected to hold talks in the coming days to end the Russia-Ukraine war after former President Donald Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin to announce the start of peace talks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that his country was not invited to the talks in Saudi Arabia and that Kyiv would not engage with Russia without consulting its strategic partners, according to Reuters.
It was unclear what specific “barriers” Rubio and Lavrov discussed.