The United States is holding separate talks with Russia and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia to iron out details of a possible limited cease-fire in what could be a crucial step toward a full cessation of hostilities in the war.
Russia and Ukraine both agreed this past week to halt strikes on energy infrastructure temporarily, but how and when to implement that partial truce are questions that have yet to be decided as attacks persist.
The talks — held in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, with American representatives mediating — are expected to focus on hammering out those details and on safety for shipping in the Black Sea.
Ukraine was the first to hold talks with the United States, on Sunday. It will be followed by Russia on Monday. Rustem Umerov, the Ukrainian defense minister leading his country’s delegation, said the talks on Sunday had begun around 5:30 p.m. Kyiv time and ended some five hours later. “The discussion was productive and focused — we addressed key points including energy,” he wrote on social media, without offering details.
A Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said the Ukrainian delegation might hold additional discussions with U.S. officials on Monday, depending on progress.
Steve Witkoff, whom President Trump has tapped to be his personal envoy to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, has said that the ultimate goal of the talks is a 30-day full cease-fire that would allow time for negotiations on a permanent truce.
But the path toward such a truce has been shaky. Moscow continues to insist on maximalist positions, including about asserting territorial control and ensuring Ukraine never joins NATO. The Ukrainian government has repeatedly said that it will not concede to the Kremlin’s demands and accused Mr. Putin of stalling for time.
Unlike previous cease-fire discussions, which involved top government officials from all sides, this new round will focus on technical matters and will mostly involve diplomats and government advisers. Keith Kellogg, the U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, said that the American delegation included some of his own staff, along with Michael Anton, policy planning director at the State Department; and aides to the national security adviser, Michael Waltz.
The Russian delegation
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said on Friday that Mr. Putin had personally selected negotiators for the talks, a delegation led by Grigory B. Karasin, a senior Russian diplomat and lawmaker; and Sergey O. Beseda, an adviser to the head of the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., the country’s domestic intelligence agency.
While Mr. Karasin has been involved in sensitive foreign policy talks before, Mr. Beseda’s choice came as a surprise to some.
An influential spymaster, Mr. Beseda was head of the F.S.B. department responsible for international intelligence operations. He has been described by Russian news outlets as one of the main sources of intelligence that convinced Mr. Putin in 2022 that there was pro-Russian sentiment in Ukraine and that a brisk invasion could easily dismantle the government in Kyiv.
In 2023, Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, called Mr. Beseda a “very problematic person” for Ukraine who “has done a lot of evil.”
The Ukrainian delegation
Mr. Umerov, Ukraine’s defense minister, led the negotiations in Riyadh. He was joined by Pavlo Palisa, a top military adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Both Mr. Umerov and Mr. Palisa are members of the Ukrainian delegation for peace talks that Mr. Zelensky appointed this month, a group led by his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. Mr. Umerov was a key negotiator for Ukraine in peace talks with Russian diplomats in the early months of the war.
Given the technical nature of the talks on energy and shipping, Ukraine also sent seasoned diplomats and civil servants as part of its delegation. Ukrinform, the state news agency, said the team included deputy foreign and energy ministers, along with Mr. Zelensky’s top diplomatic adviser.
Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine had prepared a list of infrastructure objects that could be included in the cease-fire agreement. He added that a third party would have to monitor the cease-fire and suggested that the United States could do so.
While Russia and Ukraine may find common ground in talks about energy and shipping, both have laid out conditions for a complete cessation of hostilities that appear irreconcilable — a sign of the steep challenges ahead in any broader peace negotiations.
Moscow’s position
This past week, during a telephone conversation with Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin said that Russia would agree to a temporary truce only if Ukraine stopped mobilizing soldiers, training troops or importing weapons for the duration of any pause in fighting.
Mr. Putin also demanded the complete halt of foreign military aid and intelligence to Kyiv, calling it “the key condition for preventing an escalation of the conflict and making progress toward its resolution through political and diplomatic means,” according to the Kremlin’s readout of the call.
The White House said that military aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine would continue despite the Kremlin’s demands. But the Trump administration has been less clear on Moscow’s calls for territorial concessions and at times even appeared to align with the Kremlin’s stance.
Mr. Witkoff echoed a Kremlin talking point on Sunday when he tried to legitimize the staged referendums that the Russian occupation forces held in parts of Ukraine to justify the annexation of those territories taken by military force. “There is a view within the country of Russia that these are Russian territories,” Mr. Witkoff told Fox News. “There are referendums within these territories that justify these actions.” Those referendums were widely denounced as fraudulent and illegal by the international community.
Fundamentally, Russia’s position regarding the conflict has remained the same. The Kremlin says it wants to “eliminate the root causes of the crisis” — essentially demanding that Ukraine capitulate. That would mean Kyiv’s recognizing Russia’s territorial gains, declaring neutrality and agreeing to shrink its military, which would most likely leave Ukraine vulnerable to another invasion.
Kyiv’s position
Ukraine had previously agreed to an unconditional 30-day truce to cease all combat operations, at the urging of the Trump administration. But after Moscow said that it would support only a partial cease-fire on energy infrastructure, Mr. Zelensky spoke with Mr. Trump and agreed to the limited truce.
In recent days, Ukrainian officials have set out red lines going into negotiations: Kyiv will never accept Russian sovereignty over occupied Ukrainian territory, it will not agree to be blocked from joining NATO or to reduce the size of its army, and it must have security guarantees as part of any peace settlement.
Many Ukrainian officials and analysts express doubt that even a limited cease-fire will hold for long, noting that previous truces between Moscow and Kyiv were routinely violated, with each side blaming the other.
“I do not believe in a cease-fire. We’ve been through this before,” Kostyantyn Yeliseev, a seasoned diplomat and former Ukrainian deputy foreign minister who took part in cease-fire negotiations in 2014 and 2015, said in an interview.
What’s next?
Mr. Witkoff said on Wednesday in an interview with Bloomberg News that Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin were “likely” to meet in Saudi Arabia within weeks. American officials will also probably continue meeting their Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in the Middle East to discuss details of a possible limited truce.
But the foundations of the diplomatic process have been wobbly, analysts said, with Moscow and Kyiv ready to continue fighting.
“Both sides still believe that they can continue the war regardless of the American position,” said Dmitry Kuznets, a military analyst with the Russian news outlet Meduza, which operates from Latvia after being outlawed by the Kremlin.
He added, “Moscow’s and Kyiv’s visions of what an agreement could look like are still infinitely far from each other.”
Maria Varenikova and Minho Kim contributed reporting.
