On February 18, a meeting took place in the capital of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, between American and Russian delegations. Bloomberg reported that the Saudi prince suggested inviting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to these talks, but representatives from the US and Russia insisted on a bilateral meeting.
After the negotiations, Russian negotiators stated that they went "fairly well" and that the teams from Russia and the US would "in due time" begin contacts regarding Ukraine. Among other things, the US and Russia agreed to restore the staffing of their embassies in Washington and Moscow, respectively.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the negotiations in Saudi Arabia, noting that they had "the same mood" as the Russian ultimatum at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. He also postponed his visit to Saudi Arabia until March.
A teacher named Natalia, who organized a festive event at Capital School No. 309 where children performed skits featuring the "assault" of a military representative, wrote a resignation letter.
Prior to that, she apologized for the skit, stating that the performance was not part of the script and that she should have better supervised the preparation for the show.
The school principal, citing the words of the students themselves, claimed that the assault on the military was supposedly meant to symbolize "the end of the war and our victory."
The news agency Reuters conducted a three-hour broadcast from Independence Square in Kyiv, likely setting up a camera on the roof of the "Ukraine" hotel. The head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, Timur Tkachенко, stated that he had reached out to the appropriate law enforcement agencies, and the broadcast was subsequently terminated.
France plans to organize another meeting to discuss Ukraine and European security on Wednesday, February 18, according to Reuters. This time, Paris has invited European countries that were not previously invited, including Czech Republic and Romania, as well as Canada.
In Kyiv, a minibus driver was suspended for ejecting military officer Ksenia Ponomaryova and intentionally braking, causing her to fall inside the vehicle.
The woman reported that she could barely see out of one eye due to a concussion, which makes her movements slow, while the driver referred to her as "drunken cattle."