Hello, and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service,
coming to you live from our studios in central London.
I'm Julian Marshall.
The United States and Ukraine have concluded their meeting in Saudi Arabia,
where they were discussing ways of ending the conflict.
But the Ukrainian delegation might have been forgiven for thinking
that they were facing a foe rather than a friend.
Since President Trump unilaterally opened communications with President Putin
in a telephone call last month,
the White House has been piling the pressure on Ukraine.
There was
that infamous row in the Oval Office followed
by the US Decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine along with intelligence sharing.
And it's been refusing to give any security guarantees in the event of a deal being reached.
But the Saudi talks ended
with the United States agreeing immediately to lift its pause on intelligence sharing with Ukraine
and resume security assistance to Kiev,
which Ukraine has confirmed has now happened.
In a joint statement,
Ukraine also backed a US proposal