Riyadh: US and Russian officials had talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday aimed at sealing a Maritime Sea Maritime Lee-Feu agreement in front of a wider ceasefire in Ukraine while Moscow and Kyiv used drones to fight.
The talks, who followed American negotiations with Ukraine in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, occurred after Russia launched its third consecutive night attack against kyiv, injuring a person and damaging the houses of the region around the Ukrainian capital.
Russia, for its part, said that it had shot 227 Ukrainian drones in the past 24 hours, while firefighters in its southern Krasnodar region were fighting for a fifth day to turn a fire in an oil depot hit in an attack by Drone Ukrainien last week.
President Donald Trump intensified his desire to end the three -year conflict after speaking last week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The White House says that the goal of Saudi talks is to reach a sea cease-fire in the Black Sea, allowing the shipping flow, although the area has not been the location of intense military operations in recent months and it was not clear if the talks would quickly lead to a new agreement or if they were designed to give the coverage of the sides to discuss a wider agenda.
“This is mainly the safety of navigation,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, noting that an agreement in 2022 on the expedition of the Black Sea had not delivered what he had promised in Moscow.
The emphasis on the Black Sea is much narrower than a large 30-day ceasefire agreement that the United States has proposed in Saudi Arabia earlier this month, an indication that Russia could still be a way to agree with an important break in the fighting.
Ukraine has imposed significant damage to the Black Sea fleet of Russia since 2022, forcing Moscow to move certain ships from its Crimean base.
Despite the Russian attacks against its ports, Ukraine was able to export cereals, iron ore and other products via the Black Sea from its three main sea ports in its Odesa region at levels similar to those before the war.
He could not use the port of Mykolav, another major export center, however, and Zelenskiy called the leaders of the European Union earlier this month to support the idea of a truce at sea and in the air.
Skepticism in Europe
An informed source of the planning of Saudi talks said that the American team was led by Andrew Peek, principal director of the National Security Council of the White House, and Michael Anton, a senior official of the State Department.
Russia was represented by Grigory Karasin, a former diplomat who is now chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Superior Chamber, and by Sergei Bededa, advisor to the director of the Federal Security Service, the main successor agency of the KGB of the Soviet era.
Karasin was quoted by the Interfax news agency, saying for a break after almost three hours of talks that consultations progressed “in a creative manner” and that the two parties had discussed questions considered to be “irritants” in their bilateral links.
Trump, who called on several occasions at the end of the war in Ukraine, expressed a broad satisfaction on the way the talks have been complementary about Putin’s commitment to the process so far.
However, there is skepticism among the great European powers as to whether Putin is ready to make real concessions or will stick to what they consider as its maximalist requirements which do not seem to have changed since he sent troops to Ukraine in 2022.
Putin says he is ready to discuss peace, but that Ukraine must officially abandon his NATO ambitions and withdraw his troops from the entire territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mainly controlled by Russia.
Break on energy attacks
The Kremlin said that Russia was still remaining by a 30 -day moratorium on the attack on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure targets that Putin promised Trump last week, despite the fact that kyiv continues to hit Russian energy facilities.
Ukraine, who said she would only accept the break if an official document was signed, accused Moscow of having flouted his own moratorium, which Russia denies.
The National Security Councilor of the White House, Mike Waltz, told CBS of CBS on Sunday that the American, Russian and Ukrainian delegations were gathered in the same installation in Riyadh.
Saudi television said today that the Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov arrived in Saudi Arabia. His presence may indicate that the American delegation will hold new talks with Ukraine after the end of its consultations with Russia.
Beyond a ceasefire in the Black Sea, Waltz said that the teams would discuss “the line of control” between the two countries, which he described as “verification measures, peacekeeping, frost on the lines in which they are”.
He said that “confidence strengthening measures” were also being discussed, including the return of Ukrainian children taken by Russia.
