<div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-0"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, working to repair his strained relationship with the United States and secure a favorable deal to end his country’s war with Russia, was scheduled to meet on Monday with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"><a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/us/politics/ukraine-zelensky-trump-russia.html" title="">The meeting</a> between Mr. Zelensky and Prince Mohammed, the de facto Saudi leader, who has sought to take a central role on the <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/world/middleeast/mbs-saudi-crown-prince-what-to-know.html" title="">world’s diplomatic stage</a>, comes ahead of talks planned for Tuesday between Ukrainian and U.S. officials in the oil-rich Gulf state.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The crown prince, once shunned internationally because of accusations of human rights abuses that he has denied, has positioned his country as a middleman in efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Last year, Saudi Arabia played a pivotal role in a complex U.S.-Russia prisoner swap, and President Trump has <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/13/world/europe/trump-putin-saudi-arabia-ukraine.html" title="">suggested it could be the site of a possible meeting</a> between him and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Last month, Mr. Zelensky postponed a trip to Saudi Arabia after it hosted an <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/world/europe/us-russia-saudi-ukraine.html" title="">extraordinary meeting</a> of the U.S. secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, in which the two sides sought to reset their relationship and discussed the war in Ukraine, without Mr. Zelensky.</p></div><aside aria-label="companion column" class="css-ew4tgv"></aside></div><div data-testid="Dropzone-1"></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-1"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">But on Saturday, Mr. Zelensky <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1898361925807018492?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">said on social media</a> that he would visit Saudi Arabia, declaring that he was “determined to do everything to end this war with a just and lasting peace.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“Ukraine has been seeking peace from the very first second of this war,” he wrote of the full-scale conflict, which began with Russia’s invasion three years ago. “Realistic proposals are on the table. 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