The White House said Tuesday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a ceasefire in the Black Sea and to implement a ban on attacks on energy facilities by the two neighbors, an apparent breakthrough after American negotiators held separate talks with both countries.
If implemented, the agreements could mark a major step toward a wider deal to end the three-year-long war, which began when Russia launched a largescale invasion of its smaller neighbor.
Negotiators had agreed both countries would “ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea,” the White House said in two separate statements.
Both statements also said that Russia and Ukraine would stop striking each other's energy facilities.
The announcement came after American officials met separately with Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh.
While the statements were similarly worded, one about the talks with the Kremlin said the United States would help to “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.”
In the second statement, the White House said the U.S. and Ukraine had agreed that America “remains committed to helping achieve the exchange of prisoners of war, the release of civilian detainees, and the return of forcibly transferred Ukrainian children.”
Neither statement mentioned security guarantees for Ukraine or efforts to regain land seized by Russia, which currently holds around 20% of Ukraine's territory.
Both Russian and Ukrainian officials appeared skeptical that the other side would keep their end of the bargain.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Reuters in a televised interview that the Kremlin could not trust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and it would only sign a Black Sea deal if Washington issued an “order” to him to respect it.
“We will need clear guarantees. And given the sad experience of agreements with just Kyiv, the guarantees can only be the result of an order from Washington to Zelenskyy and his team to do one thing and not the other,” he added.
As seen with previous rounds of negotiations, there were indications that the White House and Kremlin did not share the same understanding of the details. A Kremlin readout suggested that a firm agreement has not yet been reached. It said that the Black Sea truce will go into force after a series of sanctions are lifted.
Zelenskyy also told a news conference that he had “questions about how all this will be implemented,” adding that there was “no faith in the Russians here, but I believe that we will be constructive.”
His country was still counting the casualties from an attack a day earlier in the city of Sumy — on a dense residential area, a children’s hospital and a school — with authorities reporting 101 people injured, including 23 children.
Russia fired 139 more Iran-designed Shahed drones into the country overnight, Ukrainian officials said. They added that while 78 were shot down, others caused damage in the regions of Kharkiv, Sumy, Poltava, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Cherkasy and Odessa.
