By dangling the carrot of untapped business opportunities, Russia has secured the sort of superpower respect it hasn't had for the last three years and even managed to push its claim that it is the victim,

U.S. and Russian officials held more than four hours of talks in Riyadh on Tuesday, their first on ending the war in Ukraine, as Kyiv and its European allies watched anxiously from the sidelines and Moscow raised a major new demand.

Talks in Saudi Arabia between U.S. and Russian officials, led by each country’s foreign ministers, lasted more than four hours. It was the first high-level, face-to-face contact between American and Russian delegations since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine three years ago.