Top Russian officials head to Riyadh to prepare groundwork for Trump-Putin meet. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov are heading to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. They will meet a US delegation comprising Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Tuesday. The meeting is to prepare the ground for the much-anticipated meeting between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin on resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The European leaders have openly expressed their unhappiness for being excluded from talks on the Russian-Ukraine Conflict. The recent turn of events at the Munich Security Conference gives a clear indication that the US will not allow Europe to piggyback in resolving the three-year-old Russia- Ukraine conflict. It is believed that the meeting will take place in Riyadh on February 17. The Russian Foreign Ministry has confirmed that the date of the meeting has been set for February 20, 2017 at the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany. It will be the first meeting between the presidents of Russia and the United States.
