(Bloomberg) -- Top US and Russian officials are to meet in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine, without anyone from Kyiv taking part and as Europe struggles to respond to the rapid pace of events.

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The talks in Riyadh follow President Donald Trump’s landmark phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin last week in which he reversed key US positions on the conflict. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned that his country won’t recognize “any agreements about us without us.”

The US is represented by White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Putin has sent Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kremlin foreign-policy aide Yuri Ushakov to the talks.

The meeting is a way to “determine if the Russians, perhaps, are serious and if they’re on the same page” with the US when it comes to ending the war in Ukraine, according to State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce, who briefed reporters traveling with Rubio in Saudi Arabia.

“The main thing is to begin a real normalization of relations between us and Washington,” Ushakov told Russian state television on his arrival in Riyadh late Monday.

The head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, may join the talks to deal with economic issues, Ushakov earlier told state television, the Interfax news service reported. The meeting will focus on preparation for possible negotiations for a settlement in Ukraine and for a meeting between the two presidents, Ushakov said.

Trump called last week’s 90-minute call with Putin “highly productive” and said they’d likely meet in Saudi Arabia. It was the first publicly announced contact between the Russian leader and a US president since Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Trump abandoned his predecessor President Joe Biden’s policy of refusing to engage with Russia without Kyiv’s involvement, and reversed long-held US positions supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity and ambitions to join NATO.

Following a European outcry that the US and Russia were moving forward without any representation from Ukraine, the US clarified that these were exploratory talks, and not the start of full-blown negotiations to end the three-year war that has devastated Ukraine.