Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Friday, where he said he had a “very fruitful meeting” with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“There is a strategic security arrangement that we are actively developing in three key areas,” Zelensky wrote on social media.
“The first is the export of Ukrainian security expertise and capabilities in air defense. The second is energy cooperation, which makes Ukraine more resilient at the moment. The third is the difficult area of food security,” he said.
For Zelensky, who is also accompanied by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Syabyh and National Security Advisor Rustam Umerov, it is the second visit to Saudi Arabia in a matter of weeks.
“Today, we are advancing our agreements with Saudi Arabia in the areas of security, energy and infrastructure,” Zelensky said. He said he appreciated the “substantial cooperation” between the two countries.
Since the beginning of the US–Israeli war with Iran and the resulting Iranian drone attacks on US allies in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Ukraine has launched a diplomatic offensive in the region, offering its hard-earned expertise in anti-drone warfare to the Gulf states in exchange for financial, military and diplomatic support in their fight against ongoing Russian aggression.
“It is important that the reinforcement be mutual,” Zelensky said, especially since Russia also wants to restore its diplomatic position on the world stage with the help of a sympathetic United States.
Miami G20: Will Vladimir Putin attend?
Russia has accepted an invitation to the annual meeting of the Group of 20 (G20), which Washington is hosting in Miami, Florida in December, Reuters news agency reported on Friday, quoting a US official.
“As a member of the G20, Russia has been invited to all working-level meetings to date,” a State Department spokesperson said Thursday. “chairman [Donald] “Trump has made it clear that Russia is welcome to participate in all G20 meetings as the United States focuses on holding a successful and productive summit.”
However, whether Russia will be represented in person by President Vladimir Putin is another question.
Putin has not attended a G20 summit since 2019 due to his diplomatic isolation first due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then after a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But he traveled to Anchorage, Alaska, to meet US President Trump in the US territory in August 2025.
“President Putin may go to Miami as a member of the G20, or he may not,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian State on Friday. “Or another Russian representative could go.”
Trump said Thursday that Putin’s personal presence would be “helpful” and that pulling Russia out of the G8 was a mistake.
“He was very hurt by it,” he said. “I would venture to say that if you hadn’t kicked him out you probably wouldn’t be having these problems.” Trump said he believed in talking to “everyone”, but added: “Frankly, I doubt he will come.”
Ukraine and EU: Merz denied immediate access
With Trump’s second administration increasingly sympathetic toward Russia, Ukraine continues to foster diplomatic ties elsewhere – not just in the Middle East, but closer to home in Europe.
Following the election defeat of right-wing populist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban earlier this month, Budapest lifted its veto on a €90 billion ($105 billion) EU loan to Kiev, which was formally approved on Thursday.
Zelensky thanked the EU, saying, “This money is for our army and we are ready to buy weapons with it, including air defense.” “This is also funding that will help us prepare [next] “The work has begun to protect the winter, and our energy system.”
He also used the occasion to reiterate his call for full Ukrainian membership of the EU, telling journalists after the EU summit in Cyprus on Friday: “We are defending common European values. I believe we deserve full EU membership.”
European Council head Antonio Costa, who chairs EU summits, said Kiev had taken “very impressive” steps to implement pro-democracy and anti-corruption reforms even during the war.
However, he cautioned that the painstaking negotiations towards membership were “a long process, very difficult” and refused to set any deadline on eventual Ukrainian accession, saying: “We cannot try to fix artificial moments.”
At the same time, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also stressed that there is no possibility of a rapid joining of the Ukrainian bloc. “It is clear to everyone that Ukraine’s immediate accession to the EU is not possible,” he said.
Nevertheless, Merz also called on European allies not to abandon their support for Kiev.
“I have appealed to my colleagues not to use it [the approval of] “This loan is an opportunity to withdraw from bilateral agreements with Ukraine or even abandon them,” he said, dismissing the notion that Germany would cut its planned €11.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine this year.
“We need cooperation at the bilateral level between Ukraine and individual Member States and we need a collective effort as the EU [in the form of] This loan,” he said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “While Russia is doubling its aggression, we are doubling our support to the brave Ukrainian nation, enabling Ukraine to defend itself and taking the pressure off Russia’s war economy.”
Russian economy under stress
And the Russian economy is showing signs of strain, with it shrinking 1.8% in the first two months of 2026, as President Putin acknowledged this week, calling on his Cabinet to take measures to prevent recession.
The Russian Central Bank had previously predicted growth of 1.6% in the first quarter, but its board of directors has now been forced to cut interest rates by 50 basis points to 14.5% in an effort to reinvigorate the economy.
Inflation in Russia is officially just over 5%, but Russians are feeling the effects of more than five years of war in Ukraine, particularly in the disproportionately increased costs of basic everyday products.
Increasing Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian oil industry are also making themselves felt as Kiev looks to take the war back to the country that started it. Apart from the impact on oil production, frequent disruptions in internet connections are also causing problems for sectors that rely heavily on digital technology.
Russia has benefited slightly from rising demand for its oil due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, but central bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina has urged caution over the impact of conflict in the Middle East.
“The situation in the Middle East remains a factor of uncertainty,” he said. “If the conflict drags on, the adverse impact on the Russian economy will be strong.”
Ukraine-Russia prisoner exchange
Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine have concluded a prisoner swap, involving 193 captured soldiers each.
Members of the Ukrainian Army, National Guard, Border Guard and National Police have returned home, Zelenskyy confirmed on Friday, adding, “They defended Ukraine on various fronts. It is important that the exchange is taking place and that our people are returning home.”
The Russian Defense Ministry said the freed Russian soldiers were still in Belarus, where the exchange was brokered by the United States and the United Arab Emirates.
However, elsewhere, two senior Ukrainian officers have been removed from their posts after allegedly falsifying battlefield situation reports and failing to ensure adequate supplies reached frontline troops.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Friday that commanders “lost several positions and made mistakes in sending supplies to the troops.”
According to the statement, the affected forward areas are east of the Oskil River near the city of Kupyansk in northeastern Ukraine.
A day earlier, the daughter of a service member had drawn attention to the difficult supply situation by publishing photographs of emaciated soldiers. “The boys don’t have food or water!” she wrote. “Fighters are fainting from hunger, drinking rain water.”
Another woman claimed that her husband’s unit had gone without food for 17 days. “When the boys arrived on the front lines, they weighed more than 80–90 kg (170–200 lb), but now they weigh around 50 kg (110 lb),” he said. “They weren’t listened to on the radio, or maybe no one wanted to listen to them.”
The military acknowledged logistics problems in the region, where the Russians actively target Ukrainian supply and evacuation drones.
“Everything is done by drone,” a spokesperson said. “The Russians pay most attention to the delivery of food, ammunition and fuel. They intercept and shoot down as much as possible. Sometimes they are not so much interested in our military equipment as they are in logistics.”
Edited by: Dmytro Lyubenko