US and Russia teams meet after Ukraine has 'productive' talk

Bloomberg News on Mar 24, 2025

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U.S. and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia for about 12 hours a day after American and Ukrainian teams held talks, as President Donald Trump pushes for progress in achieving a ceasefire in the war.

The two sides were expected to release a statement on Tuesday Russian delegation was still locked in closed-door talks with the U.S. in the Saudi capital Riyadh late on Monday, Russia’s Tass news service reported. It’s led by former Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin and Sergei Beseda, an adviser to the head of the Federal Security Service in Moscow, the agency said.

The sides discussed the safety of navigation in the Black Sea, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday. Russian President Vladimir Putin will be immediately informed of the outcome of the talks, he said.

The discussions with the U.S. on Sunday were “productive and focused,” and “addressed key points including energy,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said on social media.

White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said on Sunday that the negotiations involving “technical teams” would focus on a potential Black Sea maritime ceasefire. He suggested that would lead into discussions about “the line of control, which is the actual front lines” of the war that started when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

“That gets into the details of verification mechanisms, peace-keeping, freezing the lines where they are,” Waltz said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “And then, of course, the broader and permanent peace” including security guarantees for Ukraine.

The talks follow Trump’s separate phone calls last week with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which led to an agreement on a 30-day halt to attacks on energy infrastructure.

Zelenskyy said Sunday that “massive Russian drone attacks” were continuing and he called on U.S. and European allies to put “more pressure on Russia to stop this terror.”

On Monday, even as the talks in Riyadh were going on, a Russian missile struck a densely-populated area in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy injuring nearly 90 people, including 17 children, Zelenskyy said in his evening video address.

The children were hiding in a bomb shelter during the attack, which prevented more casualties, local Governor Volodymyr Artyukh said in a video statement on Telegram. Several apartment buildings and a school were damaged.

Separately, Ukraine’s state-run railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia said it faced a massive cyber attack hitting most of its online services in a Facebook post on Monday. Train traffic is stable despite the attack, it said.

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With assistance from Aliaksandr Kudrytski.

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