A U.S. delegation will push for progress toward a Black Sea ceasefire and a broader cessation of hostilities in the Ukraine war during talks with Russian officials on Monday, following discussions with Ukrainian diplomats on Sunday.
These so-called technical talks come as U.S. President Donald Trump intensifies efforts to halt Russia’s three-year assault on Ukraine. Last week, Trump spoke with both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A source familiar with the talks said the U.S. delegation is led by Andrew Peek, a senior director at the White House National Security Council, and Michael Anton, a senior State Department official. The U.S. team met with Ukrainian officials on Sunday night and is scheduled to meet with Russian representatives on Monday.
According to the White House, the talks aim to establish a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea to allow the free movement of shipping. White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday that U.S., Russian, and Ukrainian delegations were gathered at the same facility in Riyadh. Beyond the Black Sea ceasefire, discussions will also address "the line of control" between Ukraine and Russia, including verification measures, peacekeeping efforts, and freezing territorial positions. Additional confidence-building measures, such as the return of Ukrainian children taken by Russia, are also on the agenda.
Russia’s delegation includes Grigory Karasin, chair of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sergei Beseda, an adviser to the director of the Federal Security Service. Ukraine’s delegation is led by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who stated on Facebook that U.S.-Ukraine talks included proposals to protect energy facilities and critical infrastructure.
Following Russian military gains in 2024, Trump reversed U.S. policy on the war, initiating bilateral talks with Moscow and suspending military assistance to Ukraine while urging Kyiv to take steps toward ending the conflict.
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, who met with Putin in Moscow earlier in March, dismissed concerns from NATO allies that a deal with Moscow could embolden Russia to invade other neighbors. "I just don’t see that he wants to take all of Europe. This is a much different situation than World War Two," Witkoff told Fox News. "I feel that he wants peace."
Ongoing Conflict and Ceasefire Efforts
Trump has long vowed to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two. However, his outreach to Putin has unsettled European allies, who fear a fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy, which for 80 years has prioritized defending Europe from Russian expansionism. The war has killed or wounded hundreds of thousands, displaced millions, and reduced entire towns to rubble.
Putin, whose forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, recently expressed conditional support for Washington’s ceasefire proposal but insisted that Russian forces would continue fighting until key conditions were met.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said on Friday that the Ukrainian and U.S. delegations would clarify the modalities and mechanisms for enforcing different ceasefire regimes, monitoring them, and determining their scope.
Last Tuesday, Putin agreed to Trump’s proposal for a 30-day suspension of attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure and ordered the Russian military to comply. However, the agreement fell short of the broader 30-day truce the U.S. and Kyiv had sought.
Trump stated on Saturday that efforts to de-escalate the conflict were "somewhat under control." The U.S. aims to secure a broad ceasefire within weeks, targeting a truce agreement by April 20, according to Bloomberg News.
Despite diplomatic efforts, both Russia and Ukraine have continued to report strikes, and Russian forces are slowly advancing in eastern Ukraine, a region Moscow claims to have annexed.
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