RIYADH — A US delegation led by Steve Witkoff has begun a high-stakes meeting with Kremlin negotiators in Saudi Arabia, where the Trump administration is pushing for progress toward a ceasefire in separate talks with Russia and Ukraine.
The meeting comes one day after talks between a US team led by President Donald Trump’s Kyiv envoy, Keith Kellogg, and Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, which were described by the latter as “productive and focused.”
At the top of the agenda of Monday’s talks will be “the issue of the Black Sea Initiative and all aspects related to its renewal,” including “navigation safety,” according to the Kremlin.
Earlier in the war, the so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative enabled the safe export of Ukrainian grain through Black Sea waters. Russia withdrew from that agreement, which was brokered by Turkey and the United Nations, in 2023, complaining that Russia faced obstacles exporting its own food.
Washington is eyeing a potential maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea and hoping that some of the initial positivity in peace talks can be translated into a broader 30-day truce and longer-term negotiations. But a wide gulf in expectations exists between Russia, Ukraine and their US interlocutors.
As talks continue, so do the attacks on Ukraine, where Russian strikes have killed at least four civilians in the last 24 hours, according to regional officials on Monday morning, and injured at least 13 other people – including a pregnant woman.
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to temporarily halt attacks on energy targets in Ukraine after a lengthy telephone call with US counterpart Donald Trump last week, but has continued to bombard civilian targets. Ukraine has also fired back at Russia.
Russia and Ukraine traded blame on Friday over an attack on a gas metering station that lies in Russia’s Kursk region, just a few hundred meters from their shared border.
At Monday’s talks at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, the Russian delegation includes seasoned Kremlin diplomat Grigory Karasin and former spy chief Sergey Beseda, according to Russian state media. Beseda is viewed by many in Ukraine as a hard-nosed nationalist and early supporter of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The trust deficit on the Ukrainian side has not been helped by Witkoff’s recent rhetorical support for many of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s maximalist positions ahead of talks. Speaking to podcast host Tucker Carlson on Sunday, Witkoff appeared to show some sympathy toward Russia’s territorial ambitions in Ukraine, describing the four regions Russia wants to formally annex — Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk — as “Russian speaking.”
“There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule,” he said.
Russia held the referendums in occupied areas of the four territories in September 2022. The votes were widely viewed as a sham and heavily criticized by the US at the time as well as by allies in Europe.
“The Russians are de facto in control of these territories. The question is: Will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories?” Witkoff asked Sunday. “Can (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this? This is the central issue in the conflict.”
Moscow says a ceasefire will not be possible unless Kyiv agrees not to use it to resupply or reorganize its troops. It has also publicly voiced key demands such as Ukraine never being allowed to join NATO.
Speaking Sunday night, Zelensky put the responsibility on Putin to end the war.
“The one who brought this war must take it away,” the Ukrainian president said. — CNN
