Riyadh (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – U.S. and Russian delegates started discussions in Saudi Arabia on March 24, 2025, focused on making advancement towards a broad ceasefire in Ukraine, with the US seeking a separate Black Sea maritime ceasefire agreement before securing a wider deal.
The discussions come as U.S. President Donald Trump boosts his drive to end the three-year-old confrontation after he last week talked to both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As briefed by the sources on the planning for the talks, the U.S. side was being chaired by Andrew Peek, a senior director at the White House National Security Council, and Michael Anton, a senior State Department officer.
The White House states the aim of the talks is to achieve a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, authorising the free flow of shipping, though the site has not been the location of severe military operations in recent months.
Russia will be represented by Grigory Karasin, an ex-diplomat who is now head of the Russian upper house of parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and by Sergei Beseda, an advisor to the director of the Federal Security Service, the principal successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB.
Analysts say the discussions are taking place amid deep suspicion in some European nations and in the UK about whether Putin is willing to make meaningful concessions or will adhere to what they notice as his maximalist demands that do not seem to have changed since he sent tens of thousands of soldiers into Ukraine in 2022.
What role is Trump playing in the peace efforts?
Trump, who has praised Putin’s engagement in the process and voiced broad satisfaction with the way talks have gone so far, stated that measures to stop further escalation in the Ukraine-Russia conflict were “somewhat under control”.
White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said that the U.S., Russian and Ukrainian representatives were gathered in the same facility in Riyadh. Beyond a Black Sea ceasefire, he stated, the teams will examine “the line of control” between the two nations, which he expressed as
“verification measures, peacekeeping, freezing the lines where they are.”
He stated that
“confidence-building measures”
are being examined, including the return of Ukrainian children taken by Russia.
What diplomatic efforts are being made between the US and Russia?
In February, top U.S. and Russian officials had their first most extensive high-level arrangement since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine almost three years ago, conferring President Donald Trump indicated that Ukraine was to blame for the conflict.
In Riyadh, the representatives led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov decided to set up teams to look into fixing staffing at the U.S. and Several Russian embassies in Moscow and Washington have been decimated by tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions. The effort is sought to use those channels to back Ukraine peace negotiations and to examine ways to restart economic and global collaboration.
