President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 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 Monday with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia.

The meeting between Zelenskyy and Crown Prince Mohammed, the de facto Saudi leader, who has sought to take a central role on the world’s diplomatic stage, comes before talks planned for Tuesday between Ukrainian and U.S. officials in the oil-rich Gulf state.

Last year, Saudi Arabia played a pivotal role in a complex U.S.-Russia prisoner swap, and President Donald Trump has suggested it could be the site of a possible meeting between him and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Last month, Zelenskyy postponed a trip to Saudi Arabia after it hosted an extraordinary meeting of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in which the two sides sought to reset their relationship and discussed the war in Ukraine, without Zelenskyy.

– The Associated Press