Ukrainian and US officials on Tuesday held their second negotiation session in Saudi Arabia, a limited ceasefire a day after Russia and the US delegation held similar debate lasting more than 12 hours.
Kiev and Moscow have held separate US-mediated talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, to discuss a temporary suspension of strikes to energy sites and a ceasefire in the Black Sea, an important route for the two countries to export.
Ukraine held its first meeting session on Sunday, followed by Russia on Monday. A Ukrainian official who discussed negotiations on terms of anonymity said consultations continued Tuesday morning, saying Ukrainian news media ended about an hour later. The debate aims to find a common basis between Kiev and Moscow, but both sides are warned against hoping for an imminent deal.
What’s on the agenda
The meeting in Riyadh was expected to focus on the details of a tentative agreement between Russia and Ukraine to temporarily suspend energy infrastructure strikes.
However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that he had primarily discussed the safety of transportation in the Black Sea and the recovery of grain trade in 2022. Lavrov said Russia was in favor of a recovery in grain trade, but only if unspecified Russian demands are met.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov said Tuesday that the Russian government is studying the results of a meeting of Russian and American delegations. He called the speech “technology” and said the results would not be published.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine would prepare a list of infrastructure that could be included in the ceasefire agreement. He added that third parties must monitor the ceasefire, suggesting that the US could do so.
Stephen Witkov, who has taken Russian President Vladimir V. Putin’s personal envoy, said the ultimate goal of the talks was a 30-day complete ceasefire that allowed time to negotiate a permanent ceasefire.
However, the path to such a ceasefire was unstable. Moscow continues to assert its greatest position, including insisting on territorial control and preventing Ukraine from joining NATO. The Ukrainian government has repeatedly said it would not approve of the Kremlin’s demands, accusing Putin of stalling due to time.
Russian delegation
The Russian negotiators are led by senior Russian diplomat and MP Grigory B. Karasin, as well as Sergei O. Betheda, an advisor to the Federal Security Director, or the FSB, the country’s domestic intelligence agency.
Karasin described the consultation as “creative,” Russian news agency Interfax reported.
Karasin has previously been involved in sensitive foreign policy consultations, but Betheda’s choice came as a surprise.
Mr. Betheda was head of the FSB division responsible for the International Intelligence News business. He is described by Russian news outlets as one of the main sources that he has been convinced by Putin in 2022 that he has pro-Russian sentiment in Ukraine and that a lively invasion could easily dismantle Kiev’s government.
In 2023, Ukraine’s head of military intelligence, Kirilo Budanov called Beseda “a very problematic person” for Ukraine who “doed a lot of evil.”
Ukrainian delegation
Umerov, along with Zelensky’s top military adviser, Pablo Palisa, leads the Ukrainian delegation in Riyadh.
Umerov and Parisa are members of the peace talks for the Ukrainian delegation appointed by Zelensky this month. Umerov was a key negotiator in Ukraine in peace negotiations with Russian diplomats early in the war.
Uklinform, a state news agency, said the Ukrainian team includes a vice minister and an energy minister along with Zelensky’s top foreign policy adviser.
Moscow’s position
Last week, Putin said in a telephone conversation with Trump that Russia would only agree to a temporary ceasefire if Russia halts soldiers, troops training or weapons imports during the period of the battle suspension.
Putin also called for Kiev to halt foreign military aid and intelligence , calling it “an important condition for preventing conflict escalation and progressing towards its resolution through political and diplomatic means.”
The White House said military aid and shared intelligence to Ukraine will continue despite the demands of the Kremlin. However, the Trump administration was less clear about Moscow’s call for territorial concessions.
Witkov repeated the Kremlin topic on Sunday, legalizing a gradual referendum in which Russian occupation forces were detained in parts of Ukraine, justifying the annexation of territory taken by military forces. “There is an opinion within Russia that these are Russian territory,” Witkov told Fox News.
Essentially, Russia’s position on conflict remains the same. The Kremlin says they want to “eliminate the underlying cause of the crisis.” This essentially requires Ukraine to surrender.
Kiev’s position
Ukraine previously agreed to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire at the request of the Trump administration to halt all combat operations. But after Moscow said it would only support a partial ceasefire in energy infrastructure, Zelensky spoke with Trump and agreed to a limited ceasefire.
Recently, Ukrainian officials set a red line into negotiations. Kiev never accepts Russian sovereignty more than occupied Ukrainian territory. I disagree with blocking participation in NATO or reducing the size of the military. And that requires security assurances as part of a peace settlement.
Many Ukrainian officials and analysts have expressed doubt that even a limited ceasefire will be held for a long time, noting that previous trans between Moscow and Kiev has been routinely violated, each of which denounces the other side.
“I don’t believe in ceasefires. We’ve experienced this before,” Kostyantyn Yeliseev, a veteran diplomat and former Ukrainian vice minister who participated in ceasefire negotiations in 2014 and 2015, said in an interview.
What’s next?
In an interview with Bloomberg News on Wednesday, Witkov said it was “highly likely” that Trump and Putin would meet in Saudi Arabia within weeks. American officials will also likely continue meetings with Middle Eastern Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, discussing the details of the limited ceasefire.
But the foundation of the diplomatic process is wobbling, and analysts said Moscow and Kiev are ready to continue the fight.
Dmitry Kuznets, a military analyst at Meduza, a Russian news outlet run from Latvia after being banned by the Kremlin, said:
He added: “The vision of what the Moscow-Kiev agreement will look like is still infinitely far from each other.”
Maria Valenikova and Minho Kim contributed the report.
