LAST UPDATE | 21 hrs ago

THE UNITED STATES said an agreement has been reached to ensure safe navigation in the Black Sea as it wrapped up three days of talks with Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Saudi Arabia on prospective steps toward peace.

US experts met separately with Ukrainian and Russian representatives in Riyadh, and the White House issued separate joint statements about the talks with Ukraine and Russia.

It said the sides have “agreed to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea”.

The Kremlin however said that the agreement announced by the US halting strikes in the Black Sea could only come into force after the lifting of restrictions on Russian agriculture exports.

Moscow said the deal would “come into force” after the “lifting of sanctions restrictions” on the Russian Agricultural Bank and other “financial institutions involved in international trade of food”, and only after they are reconnected to the SWIFT international payment system.

The US side did not mention lifting sanctions in its statement, only that it would help restore “access to the world market” for Russia’s agricultural and fertiliser exports.

The White House statement added that it would “lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions”.

The statement also mentioned that the parties agreed to develop measures for implementing an agreement to ban strikes against energy facilities in Russia and Ukraine.

Zelenskyy cautioned however that it was “too early to say that it will work”.

He also criticised Washington’s decision to help restore Russia’s access to the world market for its agricultural goods, saying it was “weakening” the positions of allies.

Zelenskyy vowed Ukrainians would “do our job to implement the agreements”, though details needed to be ironed out.

In a post to X this evening, Zelenskyy wrote: “How Russia behaves in the coming days will reveal a lot—if not everything. If there are air raid alerts again, if there is renewed military activity in the Black Sea, if Russian manipulations and threats continue—then new measures will need to be taken, specifically against Moscow.”

He said that diplomacy “must work” and Ukraine was working to ensure this. He issued thanks to the US, and then added that “results are needed from Russia”.

“We do not trust them. And frankly—the world doesn’t trust Russia. And they must prove that they are truly ready to end the war—ready to stop lying to the world, to [Donald Trump], and to America.”

Black Sea

Details of the prospective deal are yet to be released, but it appears to mark a revival of a 2022 agreement to ensure safe transit via Ukraine’s Black Sea ports that was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey and was halted by Russia the following year.

Russia had said the agreement failed to ensure safety of its Black Sea exports.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said in televised comments that Moscow is open to the revival of the agreement, but warned Russian interests must be protected.

After the Trump-Putin call last week, the White House said the partial ceasefire would include ending attacks on “energy and infrastructure”, while the Kremlin declared that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure”.

Meanwhile, a Kremlin official said today that the talks between US and Russian officials in Riyadh the previous day would likely lead to further contacts between Washington and Moscow, but that no concrete plans have yet been made.

The three days of meetings – which did not include direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations – are part of an attempt to hammer out details on a partial pause in the three-year-old war in Ukraine.

It has been a struggle to reach even a limited, 30-day ceasefire – which Moscow and Kyiv agreed to in principle last week – with both sides continuing to attack each other with drones and missiles.