Russia and Ukraine agree to partial ceasefire despite ongoing violence and mistrust (X/ @JCahayaZWH, @RealXavier011)
Russia and Ukraine agreed in principle to a partial ceasefire on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump had a phone conversation with the leaders of both countries but the warring sides presented conflicting accounts of what targets would not be subject to attack and blamed each other for jeopardizing efforts to achieve a pause. US and Russian representatives opened talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday for a temporary ceasefire in the war in Ukraine, after separate negotiations between Washington and Kyiv the day before.
US President Donald Trump is urging an end to the three-year war at speed and hopes the talks in Riyadh will break the impasse. Each side has tabled various plans for temporary ceasefires, though there have been constant cross-border raids. Initially meant to be held concurrently to make shuttle diplomacy possible enabling US officials to shuttle between delegations the negotiations are now proceeding sequentially. The session between the Ukrainian delegation, headed by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and US representatives ended late on Sunday evening.
"Discussion was worthwhile and targeted, we touched important issues such as energy," said Umerov on social media, noting that Ukraine was implementing its vision for a "just and lasting peace." The White House states that the purpose of the negotiations is to achieve a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea to ensure the free movement of shipping, although the region has not been the site of heavy military activity in recent months. As talks of a partial ceasefire continued, Russia struck Ukraine overnight on Saturday with a barrage of drones that killed at least seven, including a father and his 5-year-old daughter in the capital Kyiv.
In a live televised address Sunday evening, Zelenskyy announced that "since March 11, an offer of an unconditional ceasefire has been on the table, and these attacks could already have ended. But it is Russia that persists in all this." There has to be greater pressure on Russia to end this terror," Zelenskyy said, suggesting that it "depends on all our partners the U.S, Europe, and others worldwide. Zelenskyy has underscored that Ukraine welcomes a complete, 30-day ceasefire offered by Trump, whereas Russian President Vladimir Putin has set a complete ceasefire on a suspension of arms deliveries to Kyiv and a freezing of Ukraine's military mobilization conditions rebuffed by Ukraine and its allies in the West.
Trump, who has called several times for the war in Ukraine to end, has said he is generally pleased with how negotiations have been progressing and has been positive about Putin's involvement to date. He told reporters on Saturday that attempts to prevent further escalation of the conflict were "somewhat under control." Yet the major powers remain sceptical of whether or not Putin will move to genuine concessions or simply dig in with his maximalist insistence that the smaller powers continue not to believe apparently remains no greater than when tens of thousands of Russian forces plunged into Ukraine early in 2022.
White House national security aide Mike Waltz said on "Face the Nation" on CBS Sunday that all three US, Russian and Ukrainian delegations are gathered in one building in Riyadh. In addition to a ceasefire in the Black Sea, they will negotiate, he said, "the line of control" between the nations, which he characterized as "verification measures, peacekeeping, freezing the lines where they are. He stated that "confidence-building measures" are being discussed, such as the return of children seized by Russia from Ukraine. The Kremlin reported that talks will be "mainly to examine the possibilities of the potential implementation of an internationally known initiative concerning Black Sea navigation safety.
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