Washington and Kyiv yesterday held brief talks in Saudi Arabia, a day after hours of US-Russia negotiations on halting the fighting in Ukraine ended without any breakthroughs announced.
US President Donald Trump is pushing for a rapid end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine launched more than three years ago and hopes the latest round of talks in the Saudi Arabian capital would pave the way for a ceasefire.
Kyiv earlier this month agreed to a US-proposed unconditional ceasefire, but Moscow had turned it down, with Ukraine and its European allies accusing it of not wanting peace.
Photo: Reuters
“The talks are over. All details will be announced later,” a Ukrainian source told a small group of reporters long after saying the meeting had begun.
The negotiations between Ukrainian and US officials come after hours of Russian-US meetings that yielded no announcement on any truce.
In Moscow, the Kremlin said the “content” of its talks with the US a day earlier would not be made public, saying it was still “analyzing” the results of negotiations with the US.
“They are being analyzed,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “The content of these talks will definitely not be publicized.”
The Kremlin said contacts with Washington would continue, but there was no “specific” date for another meeting.
Russian news agencies had reported that Russia and the US plan to release a joint statement on the results of the talks. There was no sign from Moscow that it would agree to any truce.
Those fresh conversations come as both Russia and Ukraine escalate their attacks on the ground, with Kyiv saying its air defense units had downed 78 out of 139 drones launched by Russia yesterday.
In Ukraine’s northeastern city of Sumy, officials said the toll from a Russian strike a day earlier climbed to 101 wounded, including 23 children.
The strike hit a residential area in the city near the Russian border as negotiations were taking place in Riyadh. The local administration in Sumy said 14 adults and 16 children were in hospital, with one adult and one child in “serious condition.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has accused Moscow of wanting to gain a battlefield advantage before agreeing to any ceasefire. The Kremlin has downplayed expectations of a rapid resolution since rhetoric around a possible halt in fighting escalated with the election of Trump.
A Russian negotiator had said earlier yesterday that Moscow would continue “useful” talks with US representatives, but would aim to involve the UN and other nations.
Ukraine has repeatedly accused the Kremlin of trying to put off any serious discussion of implementing a halt in hostilities.
The negotiator spoke a day after the US and Russian teams held 12 hours of talks in a luxury hotel in Saudi Arabia. At a previous round of talks this month in Jeddah, Kyiv agreed to a proposed 30-day ceasefire that was subsequently rejected by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Officials are studying a possible resumption of the Black Sea Initiative, an agreement that allowed millions of tonnes of grain and other food exports to be shipped from Ukraine’s ports.
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