Saudi Arabia’s role as Ukraine war mediator advances Gulf nation’s diplomatic rehabilitation − and boosts its chances of a seat at the table should Iran-US talks resume

Saudi Arabia is 2,000 miles from Ukraine and even more politically distant, so at first glance it might seem like it has nothing to do with the ongoing war there. But the Gulf state has emerged as a key intermediary in the most serious ceasefire negotiations since Russia invaded its neighbor three years ago.

While it is U.S. officials who are undoubtedly leading the efforts for an agreement, it is the Saudi capital of Riyadh that has been staging the crucial talks.

In a flurry of diplomatic activity on March 10, 2025, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s top political authority, hosted separate meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a U.S. delegation led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz.

The following day, senior Saudi officials facilitated face-to-face meetings between U.S. and Ukrainian delegations.

The resulting agreement, which is now being mulled in Moscow, is all the more notable given that it followed a diplomatic breakdown just weeks before at the Oval Office between Zelenskyy, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

Whether the proposed interim 30-day ceasefire materializes is still uncertain. On March 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he agreed with the proposal in principle, but he added that a lot of the details needed to be sorted out.

Should a deal be reached, there is every reason to believe it will be inked in Saudi Arabia, which has hosted not only the latest U.S.-Ukrainian talks but earlier rounds of high-level Russian-U.S. meetings.

But why is a Gulf nation playing mediator in a conflict in Eastern Europe? As an expert on Saudi politics, I believe the answer to that lies in the kingdom’s diplomatic ambitions and its desire to present a more positive image to the world. And in the background is the goal of better positioning the nation in the event of diplomatic maneuvers in its own region, notably in regards to any talks between U.S. and Iran.

The diplomatic convertion of MBS

Saudi Arabia’s growing diplomatic role has been a feature of the kingdom’s foreign policy since 2022.

Crown Prince Mohammed, who that year succeeded his father as prime minister, views Saudi Arabia as the convening power in the Arab and Islamic world.

Accordingly, officials in the kingdom have been directed to lead regional diplomacy over a number of pressing issues, including the conflicts in Gaza and Sudan.

At the same time, Saudis have started the process of reconciliation with Iran, which has long been perceived as the chief regional rival to Saudi influence.

This turn to diplomacy marks a shift away from the confrontational policies adopted by the crown prince during his rise to power in Saudi Arabia between 2015 and 2018. Policies such as Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen, its blockade of Qatar, the detention of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the conversion of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh into a makeshift prison all fed an image of the young prince as an impulsive decision-maker. Then in 2018 came the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

This approach brought little in the way of stability. Rather, it left the country ensnared in an unwinnable war in Yemen, a fruitless row with Qatar, and diplomatic isolation by Western officials.

A friend to Ukraine and Russia

In regards to the war in Ukraine, Saudi Arabia’s intermediary role is helped by a perception of the kingdom as a neutral nation on the conflict.

Saudi officials, in common with their counterparts in the other Gulf states, have long sought to avoid taking sides in the emerging era of great power competition and strategic rivalry. As such, the kingdom has maintained working relations with both Russia and pro-Western Ukraine since the outbreak of war in Europe.

In 2022, for example, Saudi Arabia and Russia – both leaders of OPEC+ – coordinated oil production cuts to cushion Moscow from the effects of global sanctions the West imposed after it invaded Ukraine. Yet just months later, Saudi Arabia invited Zelenskyy to address an Arab League summit in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

It was a prelude to a 2023 international summit, also in Jeddah, which brought together representatives from 40 countries to discuss the ongoing war.

Despite failing to produce a breakthrough, the meeting illustrated the convening reach of the crown prince and his intention to act as a diplomatic go-between in the Ukraine-Russia war.

Saudi Arabia and neighboring United Arab Emirates later facilitated occasional prisoner exchanges between the two countries – rare diplomatic successes in three years of conflict.

Staging ground for diplomacy

Direct engagement in high-stakes international diplomacy over the largest war in Europe since 1945 is undoubtedly a step up in Saudi ambitions. But the country’s efforts aren’t purely altruistic. Riyadh believes there’s mileage to be gained in such diplomatic endeavors.

The advent of a Trump presidency has fit Saudi desires. Trump has made his desire to be seen as a dealmaker and peacemaker clear, but he needs a neutral venue in which the hard work of diplomacy can flourish.

Just weeks into the new U.S. administration, the Saudi capital hosted the first meeting between a U.S. secretary of state and Russian foreign minister since Russia invaded in 2022.

It yielded an agreement to “re-establish the bilateral relationship” and establish a consultation mechanism to “address irritants” in ties.

The two rounds of dialogue in Riyadh – first with Russia, then Ukraine – have positioned the Saudi leadership firmly in the diplomatic process. It has also gone some way to rehabilitate Mohammed bin Salman’s image.

The sight of the crown prince warmly greeting Zelenskyy contrasted sharply with the images from a fractious White House meeting that went around the world, presenting the crown prince as a statesmanlike figure.

Turning to Tehran

Such positive optics would have seemed inconceivable as recently as 2019, when the crown prince was shunned and then presidential candidate Joe Biden labeled the country a “pariah” state.

Changing this negative global perception of Saudi Arabia is crucial if the kingdom is to attract the tens of millions of visitors that are pivotal to the success of the “giga-projects” – sports, culture and tourism events that the Saudis hope will drive its economy and allow the kingdom to be less economically dependent on fossil fuel exports.

Whereas easing tensions with Iran and supporting Yemen’s fragile truce are about derisking the kingdom’s vulnerability to regional volatility, facilitating diplomacy over Ukraine is a relatively cost-free way to reinforce the changing narratives about Saudi Arabia.

After all, any breakdown in the Russia-U.S.-Ukraine negotiations is unlikely to be blamed on the Saudis.

Indeed, Saudi officials may view their engagement with U.S. officials over Ukraine as the prelude to further diplomatic cooperation. And this will be especially true if Crown Prince Mohammed is able to establish himself as an indispensable partner in the eyes of Trump.

Saudi officials were excluded from the last major talks between Iran and the U.S., which also involved several other major world powers and led to the 2016 Iran nuclear deal. Trump withdrew from the deal shortly after assuming office for the first time in 2017, and U.S.-Iranian relations have been moribund since then.

The U.S. administration has already mooted the idea of a resumption of negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear capabilities.

Placing Saudi Arabia in the middle of any attempts to secure a new nuclear agreement that would replace or supersede that earlier deal would be a high-risk move, given the intensity of feeling on both the U.S. and Iranian sides and the uneasy coexistence between Tehran and Riyadh.

But doing so would give the kingdom what it most desires: a seat at the table.