U.S., Russian negotiators launch ceasefire talks in Saudi Arabia

Ukraine and Russia negotiate partial ceasefire amid cyberattacks and drone strikes, with differing views on targets.

U.S. and Russian negotiators on Monday (March 24, 2025) sat down for talks in Saudi Arabia on a partial ceasefire in Ukraine, hours after a round of negotiations between U.S. and Ukrainian delegations, Russian news reports said.

The State Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies said the negotiations had begun in the capital Riyadh. The meeting is expected to be followed by another contact between U.S. and Ukrainian teams.

The separate meetings are set to discuss details of a pause in long-range attacks from both Russia and Ukraine against energy facilities and civilian infrastructure, as well as a halt on attacks in the Black Sea to ensure safe commercial shipping.

Ukraine and Russia 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 and accused each other of undermining efforts to reach a pause.

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 said he would also like railways and ports to be protected.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized on Friday that the agreement reached between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin referred only to energy facilities, adding that the Russian military is fulfilling Mr. Putin's order to halt such attacks for 30 days.

Mr. Peskov accused Ukraine of derailing the partial ceasefire with an attack on a gas metering station in Sudzha in Russia's Kursk region. Ukraine's military General Staff rejected Moscow's accusations and blamed the Russian military for shelling the Sudzha gas metering station, a claim Mr. Peskov rejected as “absurd”.