Russian and U.S. diplomats will meet in Istanbul on Thursday for talks aimed at restoring their respective diplomatic missions, seen as a step towards ending the war in Ukraine, both sides said on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump’s top foreign policy advisers converged in Saudi Arabia on Monday ahead of talks with Russian counterparts, as officials race to advance the U.S. leader’s bid to end the war in Ukraine and,

Ukraine has considerable leverage in upcoming negotiations with Russia—as long as the United States stands by Kyiv and adopts a negotiating strategy that creates real dilemmas for Moscow. U.S. support for Ukraine has been cast into doubt in recent weeks after a flurry of comments by Trump administration officials offering unilateral concessions to Moscow and criticizing Ukraine.

Witkoff, Trump’s top negotiator, said the U.S. would be looking to talks from early in the war as a basis for a deal. Ukraine’s supporters saw it as an embrace of a Kremlin talking point.

At a conference held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Trump administration concluded their initial discussion of the Russo-Ukranian war with Russia by Feb. 18. However, despite being a main party in the conflict in question,