The White House said Tuesday that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to cease fighting in the Black Sea and to hash out the details for halting strikes on energy facilities. It would be the first significant step toward the full cease-fire the Trump Administration had been pushing, but it still would fall short of that goal and it remains unclear how and when this limited truce would be implemented.
Both Ukraine and Russia confirmed the agreement, although it appeared to come with some serious caveats on the part of Moscow. In a statement about the talks, the Kremlin said it would honor the agreement only after its state agriculture bank is reconnected to the international payment system and restrictions are lifted on “trade finance operations,” which are some of the penalties imposed after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
In a statement about the U.S.-Russia talks, the White House appeared to agree with at least some of the conditions, saying it “will help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions.”
The agreements came after three days of intense negotiations in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, during which delegations from Ukraine and Russia met separately with U.S. mediators.
The White House released two different statements saying it had separately struck deals with Ukraine and Russia on the maritime and energy attacks. The statements added that Washington, Kyiv and Moscow welcomed the involvement of third countries in “supporting the implementation of the energy and maritime agreements.”
Although the agreements marked a breakthrough in the White House’s efforts to reach a cease-fire, even limited, in Ukraine after three years of full-scale war, they did not appear the extract major concessions from Russia, the aggressor country.
