The United States and Russia began a new set of conversations aimed at a ceasefire of partial Ukraine on Monday, even when the two parties did not agree on how well the conversations were in Saudi Arabia and after another night of drone strikes.
American negotiators say they hope to achieve “real progress” in conversations in Saudi Arabia, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned about “difficult negotiations.”
“There are still many aspects related to the agreement that are prepared,” Peskov told reporters in a media call on Monday after the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a video of his delegation that reached Ritz Carlton in Riyadh.
The White House is trying to a “transport diplomacy strategy,” a source familiar with the negotiations to NBC News said: to meet with the Russian delegates on Monday who already spoke with Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia a day before.
Both parties sounded optimistic after those conversations, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine on Sunday by calling “quite useful” discussions, and saying that his team was working in a “completely constructive way.”
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, told several transmission programs the same day he had the hope of “real progress.”
But Witkoff had already lent alarm in Europe before both rounds of conversations, telling Tucker Carlson’s podcast on Friday that Russian President Vladimir “Putin did not consider as a bad guy” and said Putin told Trump as a friend.
Putin was vilified as a couple in every West before Trump began his second term as president in January, not only for launching an invasion not caused in Ukraine, but for decades of electoral interference and aggression abroad, and brutally silenced the political opposition in the home.
Sunday brought another control of reality to the Optimism of the White House. Russia launched 99 drones to Ukraine, killing three people in the capital of kyiv, including a 5 -year -old father and daughter, according to Zelenskyy.
Ukraine has tried more and more to defend himself by returning the fire, and the Russian Defense Minister said the Kremlin forces intercepted and destroyed 28 drones sent to Russia on Sunday and during the night until Monday.
“Every night is now a large -scale Russian drone attack,” Zelenskyy said in his night direction.
There is also an apparent discrepancy in terms of what the three parts say on the table. The White House has said that “energy and infrastructure” would be covered by the agreement, while the Kremlin expresses it as “energy infrastructure.” Since then, Zelenskyy has said that he would also like railroads and ports to be protected.
On March 11, Putin said that he would accept a high 30 -day firefire that covers the energy infrastructure, but included demands that would be as punishing for kyiv as equivalent to surrender.
Meanwhile, he has continued hitting the Night Ukrainian cities.
“Every night is now a large -scale Russian drone attack,” Zelenskyy said Sunday. “Without pressure on Russia, they will continue to despise real diplomacy in Moscow and will continue to destroy lives,” he added. “
“It doesn’t matter what we are talking about with our partners, we must press Putin to give a real order to stop strikes: whoever has brought this war must eliminate it.”
Ukraine is also concerned that an agreement for trade without restrictions with the European Union, of which he is not a member, will end on June 5.
While Ukraine finance minister Serhiy Marchenko, told The Financial Times that the expiration of the agreement would damage the economy of Ukraine, some EU member states have recently opposed the agreement, made after the invasion of Russia in February 2022, is harming its own economies.
Daryna Mayer and The Association press contributed.
