Hello, welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service coming to you live from London. My name's Paul Henley.

The United States and Russia have agreed to press ahead, quote, at speed with negotiations aimed at ending the conflict in Ukraine after what both called constructive talks in Saudi Arabia.

In the absence of any Ukrainian representatives, negotiators declared themselves satisfied.

U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, restated an American desire to bring the war to an end.

The goal of today's meeting was to follow up on the phone call the President had a week ago

and begin to establish those lines of communication.

The work remains.

Today is the first step of a long and difficult journey, but an important one.

And President Trump is committed to bringing an end of this conflict, as he said when he campaigned for president.

And he wants it to end in a way that's fair. wants it to be end in a way that's fair.

He wants it to end in a way that's sustainable and enduring,

not that leads to another conflict in two to three years.

That's not going to be easy to achieve,

but he's the only one in the world that can begin that process.

Donald Trump is the only leader in the world that could initiate that process.

And today was the first step in that process. And today was the first step in that process. And the Russian foreign minister,

Sergei Lavrov, gave the encounter a positive review. The conversation was, I think, very useful.

We didn't just listen to each other, but we heard each other. And I have reason to believe that the American Party now has a better understanding of our position,

that we based on numerous speeches by President Putin,

and that we had an opportunity to outline in detail once again.

President Zelensky, of course, was nowhere near these talks.

The man leading Russians called a neo-Nazi, when he

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