U.S. says deal reaches a safe sailing in the Black Sea after talks with Russia and Ukraine
The United States said on Tuesday it had reached an agreement to ensure safe navigation of the Black Sea as it held three-day talks with Saudi Arabia’s Ukrainian and Russian delegations to anticipate the expected steps for a limited ceasefire.
While a comprehensive peace agreement still looks far away, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the negotiations as early “right steps” headed towards a comprehensive peace settlement that has recently entered its fourth year.
“These are the possibilities of a presidential administration to end the war completely and a full ceasefire, and are also steps towards a sustainable fair peace agreement, which is the first step, not the first step, not the first step, not the initial step,” he said in a press conference.
U.S. experts met with representatives from Ukraine and Russia in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh, and in a separate statement after talks with Ukraine and Russia, the White House said in a separate statement that the two sides “agree to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels in the Black Sea for military purposes.”
Details of the expected deal have not been released, but it seems to mark another attempt to ensure secure Black Sea transport following a 2022 agreement established by the United Nations and Turkey but was stopped by Russia the following year.
When Moscow exited the deal in 2023, it complained that a parallel agreement promised to remove barriers to Russia’s export of food and fertilizers. It said restrictions on transportation and insurance hindered its agricultural trade. Kiev accused Moscow of violating the transaction by delaying inspections of ships. Russia has frequently attacked Ukraine’s southern ports and cereal storage sites after it suspended part of the deal.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a television comment on Tuesday that Moscow has now begun opening up to the revival of the Black Sea shipping agreement, but warned that Russia’s interests must be protected.
The White House apparently refers to Moscow’s demands that the United States “will help restore Russia’s access to the world and world markets for fertilizer exports, lower cost of maritime insurance, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions.”
Russia wants to ease sanctions
The Kremlin warned in a statement that Black Sea transactions can only be implemented after sanctions against Rosselkhozbank and other financial organizations involved in the trade in food and fertilizers, and ensured their access to the swift international payment system.
The Kremlin said it was also intended to lift sanctions on Russian food and fertilizer exporters and lift restrictions on Russian agricultural equipment exports. It also stressed that commercial ships must be inspected to ensure that they are not used for military purposes.
“We think this will weaken our position,” Zelenskyy said of Russia’s demand for lifting sanctions.
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A senior Ukrainian government official, who was directly familiar with the negotiations and spoke on anonymity because he had no right to comment publicly, said the Kiev delegation did not agree to raise sanctions as a condition for a maritime ceasefire and Russia did nothing to guarantee sanctions.
The official also said that while sanctions involve the responsibility of the EU, European countries have not participated in the sanctions discussion.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov warned that Kiev would see Russian warship deployments in the western Black Sea “violate commitment to ensure safe navigation in the Black Sea and threaten Ukrainian national security.”
“Ukraine will have the right to exercise its right to self-defense in this case,” he said.
Stop energy infrastructure strikes
The White House also said the two sides agreed to formulate measures to implement the agreement reached by U.S. President Donald Trump, with calls from Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to ban strikes on energy facilities in Russia and Ukraine.
The negotiations in Riyadh, which did not include direct Russian-Ukrainian connections, were part of an attempt to finalize details about a partial pause in the Ukrainian battle, which began in 2022 invasion of Moscow.
Even reaching a limited 30-day ceasefire is a daunting effort, even last week, both sides agreed, even while continuing to attack each other with drones and missiles.
Following Trump-Putin’s call last week, the White House said a partial ceasefire would include attacks on “energy and infrastructure”, while the Kremlin stressed that the agreement is more narrowly referring to “energy infrastructure.” Tuesday’s White House statement restored the wording used by Russia.
Zelenskyy notes that there is still significant uncertainty.
“I think there will be a million questions and details,” he said, adding that the responsibility for potential violations is also unclear.
He stressed that Ukraine is willing to accept Trump’s full 30-day ceasefire and reiterated that Kiev is “ready to move towards an unconditional ceasefire at any time.”
Putin stopped the complete ceasefire of Ukraine’s military mobilization amid the cessation of weapons supply to Kiev, a request rejected by Ukraine and its Western allies.
The United States noted that it is committed to helping to achieve prisoner exchanges, freeing civilian detainees and returning Ukrainian children who have been forcibly transferred.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Umerov stressed the need for additional technical consultation as soon as possible to agree to all details and aspects of the implementation, monitoring and control of the agreement.
“There is an understanding that contact will continue, but there is no specificity at the moment,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Senior Russian MP Grigory Karasin, who attended the Russian-US talks in Riyadh on Monday, told Russian state news agency Ria Novosti that the conversation was “very interesting, difficult, but rather constructive.”
“From morning to late night, we do it all day.”
