When President Trump said on Wednesday that he might soon meet with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to discuss an end to the nearly three-year war in Ukraine, he named what may have seemed like an unusual venue for the talks.

“We expect that he’ll come here, and I’ll go there and we’re going to meet also probably in Saudi Arabia the first time,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’ll meet in Saudi Arabia, see if we can get something done.”

Mr. Trump cited both his and Mr. Putin’s relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, as a reason for choosing the Gulf nation for their first meeting since he regained the White House. “We know the crown prince, and I think it’d be a very good place to be,” Mr. Trump said.

Saudi Arabia has increasingly played the role of mediator in the Russia-Ukraine war, along with its neighbor the United Arab Emirates.

For Prince Mohammed, mediating the war presents an opportunity to solidify his status as a global leader with influence that extends beyond the Middle East. It also enables him to position himself as a key intermediary capable of bringing powerful nations to the table, despite his continuing struggles to end Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the devastating war in Yemen.

In September 2022, Prince Mohammed helped to broker the release of 10 prisoners from various countries as part of a broader exchange process between Russia and Ukraine. Later, in May 2023, he invited Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to speak at a gathering of Arab leaders in the Saudi city of Jeddah, where Mr. Zelensky called on Middle Eastern nations to support Ukraine against Russia.

Later that summer, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine jointly hosted closed-door talks in Jeddah aimed at ending the war, attended by diplomats from over 40 countries, though not from Russia.

In August 2024, Saudi Arabia played an influential role in negotiating the biggest U.S.-Russian prisoner swap since the Cold War, and Mr. Putin personally thanked the crown prince.

Earlier on Wednesday, Mr. Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said that Prince Mohammed had played an “instrumental” role in mediating the release of Marc Fogel, an American teacher who was arrested on charges of bringing medical marijuana into Russia in August 2021.

“He has a very strong friendship with President Trump, and behind the scenes he was encouraging and pushing and looking for the right result, and it was helpful, it really was,” Mr. Witkoff said of the Saudi crown prince’s role.

Like many countries in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has made it clear that it does not seek to take sides in the war. It has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine even while cultivating close ties with Russia.

The Trump administration is also looking to the resource-rich Gulf nations, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to play a postwar role in Gaza. Mr. Trump has been pushing a proposal to transfer all two million Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip and then rebuild the enclave as the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Earlier this week, King Abdullah of Jordan said that there would be a meeting in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, involving Prince Mohammed and others to discuss Mr. Trump’s Gaza proposal before Arab leaders meet for an emergency Arab League summit in Cairo on Feb. 27.



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