Vladimir Putin’s team have asked for a new condition to be included in any potential peace deal for the Ukraine war.

The request came as Russian diplomats sat down with officials from the Trump administration in Saudi Arabia today, for what the US secretary of state Marco Rubio described as preliminary peace discussions. 

The talks, which have just concluded, ruffled significant feathers there were no Ukrainian or European representatives, sparking fears Russia would amp up its requests. 

And, shortly after the meeting began, a Russian official announced a new demand on the defence alliance, Nato, in Moscow.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters in Moscow it was “not enough” just for Nato to refuse to allow Ukraine to join.

She called for Nato members to walk back on a promise made in 2008 than state Kyiv would join the alliance at some point in the future.

According to Reuters news agency, Zakharova said: “Otherwise, this problem will continue to poison the atmosphere on the European continent.”

Nato members and the US are yet to respond to this request.

UK prime minister Keir Starmer has previously said Ukraine is on an “irreversible path” to joining the alliance.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump claimed last month he could “understand” why Russia did not want “somebody right on their doorstep” who was in Nato.

Ukraine has already said that it will not accept any peace deal that it made on its behalf.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “We, as a sovereign country, simply will not be able to accept any agreements without us.”

The Saudi Arabia peace talks wrapped up on Tuesday without any agreement on a meeting between Putin and Trump. 

Kremlin aide Yuri Usakov said the talks went “well”.

Kirill Dimitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, said both sides spoke to each other respectfully, but it was “too early to talk about compromises”.

The US state department said they agreed to set up a “consultation mechanism to address irritants to the US-Russia relationship”, and that high-level teams on both sides would start working towards a solution for ending the war.

Rubio also told reporters: “What’s important to understand is two things. The first is [that] the only leader in the world who can make this happen, who can even brinh people together to begin to talk about it in a serious way, is President Trump.

“The second thing I would say is that in order for a conflict to end, everyone involved in that conflict has to be okay with it.”