Russia and Ukraine agree to “eliminate the use of force” in the Black Sea | Ukraine

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to “eliminate the use of force” in the Black Sea after parallel interviews with US negotiators in Saudi ArabiaAlthough the Kremlin said that a ceased the maritime fire would start only if it had received penalties for agricultural exports.

Donald Trump said that the United States were examining the Russian conditions after the Kremlin insisted on the fact that they had negotiated concessions with the White House that would have marked the first great reception of penalties with an invasion on a large scale of 2022.

The parties at war also agreed to implement a 30 -day arrest previously announced on attacks against energy networks and to expand its area, but the resolution of fundamental issues, including any division of the territory, remains far away.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, welcomed developments, but said Kiev did not support the weakening of the penalties on Russia and expressed concern about the talks that the United States seemed to have with the Kremlin on a division of a division Ukraine.

“We are worried when they talk about us without us,” said Zelenskyy in a media briefing, responding to Donald Trump’s comments on Monday, when the President of the United States said: “We are talking about territory right now”.

Ukrainian negotiators in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, had not had their own discussions on the future division of the territory, added Zelenskyy, saying that it seemed that the United States had spoken to the Kremlin team on the division of Ukraine.

According to reports, Russia told the United States that she wants full control of three of the Ukrainian regions that partially occupies: Donetsk, Zaporizhzia and Kherson.

The statements were constantly rejected by Kyiv, who only indicated that it is ready to recognize the Russian employment in fact existing along the prevailing control lines.

The White House has published two statements, each containing five main points, four of which were identical. Both “agreed to guarantee safe navigation, eliminate the use of force” in the Black Sea – a reference to a ceased the fire although the word itself has not been used.

The fundamental difference was that the Russian declaration stated that the United States would “help restore Russia access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizing exports” by lowering insurance costs and improving access to payment systems and ports.

Trump stopped confirming that the United States granted a relief from the sanctions, however, and said that the conditions of the Kremlin were still in the revision phase.

“They will look at them and are thinking about everyone right now,” said Trump. “There are about five or six conditions. We are looking at all.”

Zelenskyy was not happy with this, saying that it was “a weakening of our position on sanctions” because it seemed to suggest that the United States would help Russia to improve its economic position while the terrestrial and aerial war continued.

Russia stated that the ceased the maritime fire will come into force only after the “revocation of the restrictions of sanctions” on the Russian agricultural bank and other “financial institutions involved in the international food trade”, and only after being reconnected to the rapid international payment system.

“The United States will help to restore Russian agricultural and fertilizers on the global market, reducing the cost of maritime insurance and expanding access to ports and payment systems to conduct this transaction,” said the Kremlin.

Russia has also claimed to want to be raised restrictions and penalties for the port service on Russian ships involved in the trade of food products, including seafood and fertilizers.

A further round of negotiations to extend the ceased the fire “would take place soon,” said Zelenskyy, although it was no longer specific for the times. Russia and Ukraine have agreed to continue working “to reach lasting and lasting peace”, said the statements of the White House.

Zelenskyy criticized Trump’s personal correspondent in Putin, Steve Witkoff, who had said in view of the talks that the referendums on stage of Russia in the four Ukrainian regions that partially or completely occupied were legitimate and had shown that “the vast majority” wanted to be “under the Russian rule”.

The Ukrainian president said that Witkoff’s comments “are very in line with the messages of the Kremlin”, but he added that he hoped that over time the US negotiator and others to the White House would gradually come to see that the Russian leadership was false.

Zelenskyy said that there was no agreement on a ceased fire because “the Russians did not want it” and believed that the negotiations continued “people did not believe more and more to the Russians every day”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said to the Russian state media in a discussion on the agreement of the Black Sea that Moscow wanted the wheat and fertilizers market to be “predictable” in order to create a profit “but also because we are worried about the situation of food safety in Africa and in other countries of global South”.

On Tuesday evening Lavrov said that Zelenskyy did not want to “surrender” and accused Kiev’s European allies of trying to “hang like a stone around the neck” by Zelenskyy. Lavrov added that Witkoff’s opinion on a wider truce was excessively optimistic because he did not take into account the “elites of European countries”.

Ukraine said that Russia was expected to stop bombing port structures in Odesa and elsewhere as part of a maritime truce. However, a separate declaration, issued by its Ministry of Defense, said that Ukraine would consider “the movement of Russian military ships beyond the Eastern Black Sea” as a violation of the agreement.

During the three -year war, Ukraine gradually forced the Russian fleet to the east after a series of raid of maritime drones and managed to reopen a commercial shipping lane near the western coast.

Russian exports have also grown, but in the past the Kremlin complained of the impact of the sanctions on its agricultural products and pulled out of a previous wheat of the Black Sea wheat in July 2023 which had been designed to facilitate food exports even while the war was in progress.

The ceased the fire will begin immediately after the White House issued the statements, Zelenskyy said, although the Russian demand for sanctions in the Black Sea means that the conditions for arrest in the fighting at sea were not accepted by Moscow.

Initially it would have been self -produced, said Ukrainian, although both sides had agreed on the fact that other countries could be involved in monitoring and safeguarding. Zelenskyy recognized that “we do not trust the Russians”, but said that, despite this Kiev, he intended to be constructive in his efforts to end the war.

The lack of application mechanisms reflected the fact that “the American part really wanted this that all this did not fail, so they did not want to deepen many details” – but he said that Ukraine would push for further clarity in the current discussions.

Ukraine believes that Turkey or a Middle Eastern country such as Saudi Arabia could be involved in the protection of safety in the Black Sea, while European countries could help with energy and maritime monitoring, added Zelenskyy.

On Monday, Trump also said that the United States had spoken with the Kremlin of the “property of the power plant”- a reference to the Zaporizhzia nuclear power plant, which is under Russian occupation.

The President of the United States expressed interest in taking control of the plant, the largest in Europe, even if it is located directly on the front line. Zelenskyy, however, said Tuesday that this had not been part of this round of negotiations between Ukraine and the United States.

Later Tuesday, the Russian press agency Tass reported that the Moscow Foreign Ministry had stated that the nuclear power plant, which was closed by autumn 2022, could not be transferred to Ukraine “or in any other country”. His comments followed “media speculations”, added Tass.