Officials from the United States and Russia held conversations in Saudi Arabia on Monday with the aim of sealing a high -fire of the Black Sea Fire before a highly wide fire agreement in Ukraine, since Moscow and kyiv used drones to hit each other.
The conversations, which followed US negotiations with Ukraine in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, occurred after Russia launched its third consecutive nighttime air attack against kyiv, hurting a person and damaging houses in the region around the Ukrainian capital.
Russia, on the other hand, said that he had knocked down 227 Ukrainian drones in the last 24 hours, while firefighters in their southern region of Krasnod fought for a fifth day to turn off a fire in an oil tank in a Ukrainian drone attack last week.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has intensified his impulse to end the conflict of three years after last week he spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The White House says that the objective of Saudi conversations is to reach a high sea fire in the Black Sea, allowing free shipping flow, although the area has not been the location of intense military operations in recent months and it was not clear if the conversations would quickly result in a new agreement or if they were designed to give the cover of the Sides to discuss a wider agenda.
“This is mainly the safety of navigation,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, and noted that a 2022 agreement on the sending of the Black Sea had not delivered what he had promised to Moscow.
The approach to the black Sea is much narrower than a wide range of the 30 -day fire that the United States proposed in Saudi Arabia earlier this month, an indication that Russia may still be some way to accept any significant pause in the fight.
Ukraine has inflicted significant damage in the Black Sea fleet of Russia since 2022, forcing Moscow to remove some vessels from its Crimea base.
Despite the Russian attacks in its ports, Ukraine has been able to export grains, iron mineral and other products through the Black Sea from its three main maritime ports in its Odessa region at levels similar to those prior to war.
However, he has not been able to use the port of Mykolaiv, another important export center at once, and Zelenskiy asked the European Union leaders earlier this month to support the idea of a truce in the sea and in the air.
Skepticism in Europe
An informed source about the planning of the Saudi conversations said that the American side was being led by Andrew Peek, senior director of the National Security Council of the White House, and Michael Anton, a senior state department official.
Russia was represented by Grigory Karasin, a former diplomat who is now president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Upper Chamber of the Parliament of Russia, and by Sergei Beseda, advisor to the director of the Federal Security Service, the main successor agency of the KGB of the Soviet era.
Karasin was summoned by Interfax The news agency says during a break after almost three hours of conversations that the consultations progressed “creatively” and that the two parties had discussed the problems considered “irritating” in their bilateral ties.
Trump, who has repeatedly asked the end of the war in Ukraine, has expressed wide satisfaction about the way the conversations have gone and has been free about Putin’s commitment in the process so far.
However, there is skepticism among the main European powers on whether Putin is ready to make real concessions or adhere to what they see how their maximalist demands that do not seem to have changed since he sent troops to Ukraine in 2022.
Putin says that 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.
Pause in energy attacks
The Kremlin said that Russia was still remaining in a 30 -day moratorium to attack Ukrainian energy infrastructure objectives that Putin promised last week to Trump, although kyiv continued to attack Russian energy facilities.
Ukraine, who said he would only agree with the pause if a formal document was signed, accused Moscow of mocking his own moratorium, what Russia denies.
White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said CBS” Face the Nation ‘on Sunday that American, Russian and Ukrainian delegations met at the same installation in Riyadh.
Saudi state television said today that Ukraine Defense Minister Rustem Uumev had arrived in Saudi Arabia. His presence may indicate that the United States delegation will have more conversations with Ukraine after they conclude their consultations with Russia.
Beyond a high black fire, Waltz said the teams would discuss “the control line” between the two countries, which described as “verification measures, maintenance of peace, freezing the lines where they are.”
He said that “trust construction measures” were also being discussed, including the return of Ukrainian children taken by Russia.
