A meeting between Russian and US officials on a partial ceasefire in Ukraine ended after 12 hours of negotiations in Saudi Arabia on Monday, Russian State Media reported, with a joint statement expected the following day.
With Ukrainian dealers waiting nearby, one day after they sat down with the American team, the Americans and Russians in Riyadh met with a Black Sea Weapon Square on top of the agenda.
President Donald Trump is pushing for a quick end to the three -year war and hopes the latest round of negotiations will pave the way for a breakthrough.
While the negotiations took place at a luxury hotel in the Saudi capital, almost 90 people including 17 children were injured in a missile attack on Sumy in northeastern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The attack on a “densely populated residential area” damaged apartments and an educational facility, the regional prosecutor said. The city’s acting mayor previously said a hospital had been affected.
The Ukrainian negotiating team expected another meeting with the US delegation on Monday, a source in Kiev told AFP that a sign that progress may have been made.
Russia’s state-of-the-art Tass news agency quoted a source as saying that the meeting with the United States had ended after “more than 12 hours of consultations” and that a joint statement about the results would be published on Tuesday.
‘Trump’s suggestion’
At an earlier round of conversations this month in Jeddah days after Zelensky’s White House, dressing down by Trump-accompanied Kyiv a US-propagated 30-day ceasefire, subsequently rejected by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Officials are now studying a possible resumption of the Black Sea Initiative, an agreement that made it possible to send millions of tonnes of grain and other food exports from Ukraine’s ports.
“The question of the Black Sea Initiative and all aspects related to the renewal of this initiative is on the agenda today,” said the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in his daily briefing.
“This was President Trump’s proposal, and President Putin accepted it. It was with this mandate that our delegation traveled to Riyadh.”
USA-Ukraine and US Russia were originally planned to take place simultaneously to enable Shuttle diplomacy, where the United States goes back and forth between the delegations, but they now take place one after the other.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who leads the Ukrainian team, said that Sunday’s conversations with the United States were “productive and focused.”
Trump broadcast Steve Witkoff has expressed optimism that any agreement would pave the way for a “full” truce.
“I think you will see in Saudi Arabia on Monday some real progress, especially as it affects a Black Sea weapon on ships between both countries,” he told Fox News.
“And from there, of course, you pull to a fully welding system.”
‘Only at the beginning’
But the Kremlin has neglected expectations for a quick resolution.
“We are only at the beginning of this path,” Peskov told Russian State TV on Sunday, adding, “There are difficult negotiations ahead.”
When Putin, in a long-term phone call with Trump, rejected the common US Ukrainian call for a full and immediate 30-day break, he suggested instead to stop in attack on energy facilities.
The traditional opponents are now discussing the return of the Black Sea Initiative, which was originally broken by Turkey and the United Nations in 2022.
Russia withdrew from the agreement in 2023 and accused West of not maintaining its obligations for facilitating sanctions against Russia’s own export of agricultural products and fertilizers.
A senior Ukrainian official previously told AFP that Kyiv would suggest a wider truce covering attacks on energy facilities, infrastructure and naval attacks.
‘Mutually advantageous’
Before the missile strike on Sumy, both sides had launched fresh drone attacks on the threshold of the negotiations.
And Ukraine’s national railway operator said on Monday that it counteracted a sophisticated cybertack for the second day in a row.
Moscow went into the Saudi conversations after an approximation with Washington under Trump, which increased the Kremlin’s confidence.
Peskov said on Sunday that “the potential of mutually advantageous cooperation on a wide range of spheres between our countries cannot be exaggerated.”
“We may disagree about some things, but that doesn’t mean we have to deprive us of mutual benefit,” he added.
Meanwhile, British and French defense managers in London met Monday to discuss plans for the Allied countries to protect any ceasefire agreement as part of British Prime Minister Keir Stormers so -called “coalition of the willing.”
There are still questions about what form such an initiative can take, but Stormmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have expressed the will to put British and French troops on earth in Ukraine.
“If there is an appointment, it is a deal to be defended,” Stormers spokesman said.