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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Top US and Russian diplomats will meet in Saudi Arabia Tuesday for talks aimed at ending the Ukraine war -- in a meeting Kyiv was not invited to and as Europe reels from Washington's dramatic change in policy towards Moscow.

It will be the first meeting between senior representatives of both countries since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

US President Donald Trump is pushing for a swift resolution to the three-year conflict, though has not yet outlined a plan to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv "did not know anything about" the upcoming talks in Riyadh, according to Ukrainian news agencies, and that it "cannot recognise any things or any agreements about us without us."

Moscow said ahead of the meeting that Trump and Vladimir Putin wanted to move on from "abnormal relations" between their countries during the Ukraine war and that it saw no place for Europeans to be at any negotiating table.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Yuri Ushakov, a senior Putin aide, will represent Moscow at the discussions, which will also discuss the possibilities for a summit between presidents Trump and Putin, the Kremlin said Monday.

From the US side, Secretary of State Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff will be in Riyadh.

Moscow said the talks would be "primarily devoted to restoring the whole complex of Russian-American relations."

Possible Trump-Putin summit

The two sides would also discuss "possible negotiations on a Ukrainian resolution, and organising a meeting between the two presidents," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Moscow has made clear it wants to hold bilateral talks with the United States on a plethora of broad security issues, rather than just talks over a possible Ukraine ceasefire.

Russia has repeatedly blasted NATO's presence in central and eastern Europe and before it launched its full-scale military offensive was demanding the military alliance pull its troops, equipment and bases out of several eastern members that were under Moscow's sphere of influence during the Cold War.

The prospects of any talks leading to an agreement to halt the Ukraine fighting are unclear.

Both Kyiv and Moscow have ruled out territorial concessions and Putin last year demanded Ukraine withdraw its troops from even more territory across its east and south as a precondition for opening talks.

Zelensky Saudi visit  

Zelensky will travel to Saudi Arabia a day later for a "long-planed" visit, though has said he does not plan to hold talks with either the US or Russian officials, his spokesman said Monday.

He said last week he was prepared to meet Putin directly, but only after Kyiv and its allies had developed a common position on a roadmap to end the war.

Ahead of his visit to Riyadh, Russia's Lavrov said Moscow was not prepared to cede land and said he saw no point in other European countries taking part in talks.

"I don't know what they would do at the negotiating table... if they are going to sit at the negotiating table with the aim of continuing war, then why invite them there?," Lavrov told a press conference in Moscow.

 'Durable peace'

Germany on Monday tentatively welcomed the talks and called for the sides to search for a "durable peace".

"That there is direct contact between the Americans and the Russians is not a bad thing if it is about finding a way to a durable and lasting peace," said a foreign ministry spokesman in Berlin.

European leaders were convening in Paris for an emergency summit on Ukraine Monday, amid alarm at Washington's diplomatic outreach to Moscow and divisions over how to best support Ukraine, including over the idea of a troop deployment.

French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly discussed the idea of a Western peacekeeping force for Ukraine.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Sunday he was ready to send troops "if necessary" and Sweden said it was not "ruling out" a peacekeeping force.

But Berlin said it was "premature" for such a discussion and Warsaw also said it was not planning to send troops to Ukraine.

Battlefield gains

Moscow heads into the talks boosted by recent gains on the battlefield.

Its better resourced troops are pushing Ukraine back across the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front line.

Kyiv also faces the prospect of losing vital US military aid, long criticised by Trump.

Russia's army on Monday said its forces had captured a small settlement in northeastern Ukraine and also retaken control of a village in its western Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a shock counter-offensive last August.

SCHWEDT, GERMANY  - Two security guards stand watch outside a small castle hosting a campaign event for the far-right Alternative for Germany [AfD] in the ex-communist east, the party's heartland.

Around 30 voters have turned up, most of them elderly men, to learn about the health plans of the AfD, which mainly campaigns against immigration, multiculturalism and "woke" policies.

Beers are served with smoked sausages at the event in Schwedt near the Polish border, where the voters speak freely about their hopes and anxieties.

"The whole country is at rock bottom," said retiree Frank Iffert, 66, from Brandenburg state.

"We were better off with the Deutschmark," he said, backing the AfD promise to ditch the euro and bring back the currency synonymous with Germany's post-war prosperity.

On immigration, Iffert said people felt "threatened" by an influx of people, often fleeing war and misery, allowed into Germany under ex-chancellor Angela Merkel and since.

He voiced disdain for those who live on benefits and "don't want to work".

He also said that many migrants who came as so-called guest workers in the 1960s now "feel threatened themselves by migrants" and that some support the AfD.

A spate of bloody attacks blamed on asylum seekers has hardened the mood -- most recently a car ramming in Munich that killed two and wounded dozens, and saw an Afghan man arrested.

Mourning times gone by

With a week until the election, the AfD is polling at a record 20 per cent, in second place.

For now, it has little hope of ending up in government as all other parties have pledged to isolate it behind a "firewall" of non-cooperation.

Nonetheless, the AfD's spectacular rise, echoing that of anti-establishment parties elsewhere, has ended Germany's belief that the memory of World War II and the Holocaust has inoculated it against a resurgent extreme right.

Many AfD supporters say they are unsettled by turbulent modern times and yearn for a return to a more stable past.

Small business owner Enrico Schulz, 55, from Wandlitz, Brandenburg, said he wanted "a return to the policies of the era of [chancellor Helmut] Kohl", who oversaw Germany's 1990 reunification.

Schulz said he used to vote for Kohl's conservative CDU but became "very disappointed" with it and turned to the AfD.

Today, Schulz said Germany's tax system did not reward work and called for "a smaller state".

Easterners like him "lived through socialism", he said. "I don't want it a second time."

KYIV — Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday 100,000 people were without heating in the southern city of Mykolaiv in cold temperatures after a Russian drone strike on "critical infrastructure".

Ukrainian officials had earlier said that Russian drones had hit a local thermal power plant.

Zelensky said the attack was proof Russia did not want peace, in a statement that came after he warned Western leaders not to trust Moscow and as Europe braces for a summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

"Today, more than a 100,000 people in Mykolaiv were left without heating as a result of a Russian Shahed attack on the city's critical infrastructure," Zelensky said on social media.

"This has nothing to do with the fighting and the situation at the frontline," he said, adding: "This is not what those who really want to restore peace and prepare for negotiations do."

Zelensky said repair teams are working to restore heating in Mykolaiv, which lies close to the Black Sea.

The Ukrainian leader called for a "strong" response from Western allies and said: "We need to force Russia to peace."

Ukraine's prime minister Denys Shmygal earlier said that Russian drones hit the power plant in Mykolaiv at night.

"This was done deliberately to leave people without heat in sub-zero temperatures and create a humanitarian catastrophe," he said.

Russia has targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure throughout its three-year invasion.

MUNICH, Germany — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday said that the war between Ukraine and Russia would only truly end with peace if Ukrainian sovereignty is secured.

US President Donald Trump stunned allies and upended the status quo of Washington's support for Ukraine this week when he announced he would likely soon meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin to start truce talks, sparking fears that Kyiv would be pressured into making painful concessions.

"There will only be peace if Ukraine's sovereignty is secured," Scholz told the Munich Security Conference.

"A dictated peace will therefore never find our support."

He added that "we will also not accept any solution that leads to a decoupling of European and American security. Only one person would benefit from this: President Putin."

"We Europeans will represent these interests confidently and unitedly in the upcoming negotiations."

Scholz spoke shortly before Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky was set to address the gathering of European leaders and policymakers in Germany.

Zelensky on Friday said he wanted "security guarantees" after he met with US Vice President JD Vance to discuss the Trump administration's efforts to broker a truce deal with Moscow.

Scholz said that to ensure Russia would not attack again if peace is reached, Kyiv's backers "first of all" needed to build up Ukraine's armed forces in the future.

"There will be a responsibility in the post war times for Europe and for the United States and for the international partners and friends of Ukraine to make this happen," he said.

"All the sort of security guarantees we give should be designed from this basis."

ADDIS ABABA — UN chief Antonio Guterres on Saturday demanded that the Democratic Republic of Congo's "territorial integrity" be respected and a regional war avoided, at an African summit the day after Rwandan-backed fighters seized a second DRC provincial capital.

With international pressure mounting on Rwanda to curb the fighting in eastern DR Congo [DRC], the conflict was set to dominate the African Union summit as it opened in Addis Ababa.

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame was seen attending meetings at the gathering, but DR Congo's president Felix Tshisekedi was absent from the summit as the M23 advanced through his country's territory.

Having routed the Congolese army to capture the key provincial capital of Goma in North Kivu last month, the Rwandan-backed armed group pushed into neighbouring South Kivu.

It took a vital airport there before marching virtually unchecked into another key city, Bukavu, on Friday, security and humanitarian sources said.

"The fighting that is raging in South Kivu, as a result of the continuation of the M23 offensive, threatens to push the entire region over the precipice," Guterres told leaders in an address to the summit, without mentioning Rwanda.

"Regional escalation must be avoided at all costs. There is no military solution," he added.

"The dialogue must begin. And the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the DRC must be respected."

DRC ceasefire call

With the spectre of a regional conflagration rising in eastern DRC, the AU has been criticised for its timid approach and observers have demanded more decisive action.

The European Union on Saturday said that it was "urgently" considering all options following the news from Bukavu.

"The ongoing violation of the DRC's territorial integrity will not go unanswered," it warned.

East and southern African leaders on February 8 called for an "immediate and unconditional" ceasefire within five days, but fresh fighting erupted on Tuesday.

Outgoing AU commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat told AFP on Friday that there was a "general mobilisation" among African nations to stop the clashes.

Summit host Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia's prime minister, insisted on Saturday that "conflict resolution, diplomacy and peace building must remain at the heart of our efforts."

A meeting of the AU's Peace and Security Council dedicated to the conflict ran late into the evening on Friday, with neither Kagame nor Tshisekedi attending.

A government source told AFP that Tshisekedi would not attend the summit over the weekend either as he had to "closely follow the situation on the ground in DRC".

AFP journalists in Bukavu reported sporadic gunfire there on Saturday, with the streets deserted as residents sheltered inside after reports of overnight looting.

Across the nearby border in Rwanda, AFP reporters in the town of Rusizi said on Saturday that the situation was calm but some gunshots could be heard.

Tshisekedi, speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, urged nations to "blacklist" Rwanda, condemning Kigali's "expansionist ambitions".

Rwanda has not admitted backing M23 but has accused extremist Hutu groups in DR Congo of threatening its security.

DR Congo accuses Rwanda of plundering valuable minerals in its eastern provinces.

Neighbouring Burundi has also sent thousands of troops to support DR Congo's struggling army.