One week after the Kremlin and the White House announced a deal that aimed to halt fighting between Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea region and pave the way for a wider cease-fire, the effort is stumbling.
In fact, the wider attempt to pause Europe's largest land war since World War II is also under severe strain, pulled in three different directions by three different presidents with three competing priorities.
On the battlefield and across Ukraine, meanwhile, fighting and air attacks continue, as Russia pounded Ukraine's second-largest city for a second day with drones and ballistic missiles on March 31. Ukrainian forces have reportedly made another cross-border raid into Russia's Belgorod region in what could be a repeat of last summer's invasion of the Kursk region.
"Talks between Moscow and Washington in Saudi Arabia not only did not result in any breakthrough; they appear to have been an overall failure," Aleksandra Prokopenko, an analyst with the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said in an analysis. "The agreements do not look like a real prologue to peace."
"Russia's strategy is to stall the negotiations as long as possible to achieve its maximalist goals by nonmilitary means," said Maria Shagina, a sanctions expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think-tank.
"At the same time, Moscow is wary of testing [US President Donald] Trump's patience," she told RFE/RL. "The ball is really in Trump's court on whether to believe that Russia is negotiating in good faith or ramp up pressure to force it to the negotiating table."
Here's where things stand at the negotiating table and on the front lines.
Who Agreed On What And When?
On March 11, Ukraine and the United States announced a breakthrough agreement paving the way for a 30-day cease-fire contingent on Russia's signing on. A major foreign policy priority for Trump, it was the first concrete proposal on the negotiating table since the early weeks after Russia's all-out assault on Ukraine in February 2022.
Putin balked, saying he agreed in principle but there were "nuances" that would have to be addressed and attaching conditions including a halt to Western supplies of weapons to Kyiv.
A week after the US-Ukrainian agreement on a full cease-fire, the White House and the Kremlin announced a narrower deal that focused on limiting attacks on Russia's and Ukraine's energy infrastructure: power plants, transmission lines, and substations.
Taking energy facilities off targeting lists has a key priority for Kyiv, which has struggled to keep the lights -- and heating -- on as Russia has pummeled its energy targets since at least November 2022. For its part, Ukraine has ramped up its homegrown industry of drones, and even cruise missiles, to target Russia's oil refineries and pipelines, not to mention military facilities.
That's unnerved Moscow, though has yet to cause major disruptions or price spikes.
Despite the deal, Kyiv and Moscow continued to batter one another. It later turned out that Russian drones were in fact in the air, en route to Ukrainian targets, even as Trump and Putin were speaking on the phone.
Moscow has insisted it has upheld the energy cease-fire, something Ukrainian officials say is nonsense.
On March 25, after separate US talks with Ukraine and Russia in Saudi Arabia, the White House announced agreements with Kyiv and Moscow to limit military action on the Black Sea. If implemented, that would give Ukraine more latitude to export its grain and agriculture products to the global markets and bring in desperately needed hard currency.
The White House agreed to help Russia restore access to the global market for agricultural products and fertilizers, reduce the cost of insurance for maritime transportation, and expand access to ports, as well as to payment systems for necessary transactions.
Sounds Good. What's The Catch?
One of the biggest land mines, however, was the conditions that the Kremlin included in its announcement released shortly after the White House statements.
Those conditions included the demand that the West lift sanctions on Russian banks that have been involved in trading agriculture products, as well as on Russian ships. Rosselkhozbank, a major state-owned lender for Russian agrobusiness, was mentioned specifically, including connecting it and other Russian entities to the global SWIFT system of bank transfers.
For experts who have followed the negotiations, that appeared to be either a "poison pill" or even a Kremlin test of the White House's negotiating tactics.
That's for several reasons: Reconnecting Rosselkhozbank to the global SWIFT system requires European consent; the United States can't do it on its own.
Lifting Western sanctions on agricultural product companies, and related things like cargo ships and ports, would allow Moscow to not only tap another revenue stream, it would also represent a small step toward unwinding the larger sanctions regime.
So The Kremlin Is Playing Smart, Then?
If the Kremlin's intention is indeed to test the White House, then judging by Trump's comments on March 30, it's struck a chord. And not in a good way.
"If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia's fault -- which it might not be -- but if I think it was Russia's fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia," Trump told NBC News.
Secondary tariffs are essentially restrictions or levies on other countries that purchase oil from Russia. That would be a significant escalation of the Western sanctions regime on Russia, which derives the bulk of its hard currency imports from oil and gas sold on global markets to places like India and China.
Trump also responded to Putin's comments on March 28 calling for a "transitional administration" in Ukraine. Those remarks echoed previous ones from Putin and other Kremlin officials who have suggested Zelenskyy was not a legitimate leader because Ukraine had been unable to hold a new presidential election due to wartime martial law.
Trump said he was "very angry, pissed off" at Putin for questioning Zelenskyy's credibility, and he said negotiations were "not going in the right location."
Those were some of the most critical comments Trump has had for Putin. In the past, he has suggested Russia was not to blame for instigating the war, and accused Zelenskyy of being a "dictator."
"The Kremlin is smart enough to give an impression that it's making concessions without actually conceding anything," Shagina told RFE/RL. "Moscow's priority is to secure sanctions relief ahead of the negotiations and to test how far the US can pressure the EU and UK to tag along. A significant divergence of the transatlantic sanctions regime is very likely, which will drastically undermine the effectiveness of sanctions."
"This is both an attempt to put pressure on the Kremlin and also is an obvious expression of dissatisfaction," Ukrainian political analyst Oleksandra Filippenko told Current Time. "This is an indication of how Donald Trump perceives Vladimir Putin. He does not perceive Vladimir Putin as an equal partner or negotiator, or perhaps as a rival in negotiations. Donald Trump believes that he should really solve all major international issues and issues related to negotiations."
What About Ukraine's Minerals?
There's another variable at work.
Ukraine's successes in its defense against the Russian invasion have been powered overwhelming by US weaponry.
But back in February, the Trump administration indicated it would partly condition future US military aid on a deal to give US companies access to Ukraine's mineral resources: so-called rare earth minerals, as well as other valuable resources like lithium, titanium, uranium, and even oil and gas.
The White House's initial proposal landed with a thud in Kyiv, where Ukrainian officials saw it as a lopsided deal that would hobble Ukraine's future economic development.
An updated proposal seen by Bloomberg News would give the United States "right of first offer" on investments in all infrastructure and natural resources projects: "an unprecedented expansion of US economic influence in Europe's largest country by area just at the time when it's attempting to align with the EU."
In comments to reporters later on March 30, Trump charged that Zelenskyy was looking to back out of the minerals deal and warned that he would face "big, big problems" if he did.
"I don't think [Trump] is going to impose sanctions," Serhiy Harmash, a former Ukrainian negotiator, told Current Time. "Trump is more interested in a partnership with Russia than with Ukraine. Ukraine is not a player for Trump. He believes Ukraine can be dictated to and controlled."
