U.S. holds separate talks with Russians after meeting Ukrainians to discuss a potential ceasefire

U.S. negotiators worked on a proposed partial ceasefire in Ukraine on March 24, 2025, meeting with representatives from Russia a day after holding separate talks with the Ukrainian team. Each side has accused the other of undermining efforts to reach a pause in the 3-year-old war.

U.S. negotiators worked on a proposed partial ceasefire in Ukraine on Monday (March 24, 2025), meeting with representatives from Russia a day after holding separate talks with the Ukrainian team. Each side has accused the other of undermining efforts to reach a pause in the 3-year-old war.

Kyiv and Moscow agreed in principle Wednesday to a limited ceasefire after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with the countries’ leaders, but the parties have offered different views of what targets would be off-limits to attack.

While the White House said “energy and infrastructure” would be covered, the Kremlin declared that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he would also like to see railways and ports protected.

Talks on Monday are expected to address some of those differences, as well as a potential pause in attacks in the Black Sea to ensure the safety of commercial shipping.

U.S. and Russian representatives met in the morning in the Saudi capital, Russia’s state Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies reported. The U.S. and Ukrainian teams met on Sunday in Riyadh.

Serhii Leshchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, said the delegation remained in Riyadh on Monday and expected to meet again with the Americans.

Grigory Karasin, head of the foreign affairs committee in the Russian parliament’s upper house and a participant in Monday’s talks, told the Interfax news agency the negotiations were going on in a “creative way" and that the U.S. and Russian delegations “understand each other’s views.”