After separate US talks with Ukrainian and Russian delegations over three days in Saudi Arabia, the United States announced separate agreements with Ukraine and Russia on barring the use of force in the Black Sea and on efforts to halt strikes on energy facilities in both countries, but plenty of obstacles remain on the path to peace.
The pair of White House statements -- one covering the March 23 and 25 talks with Ukraine, the other the March 24 meeting with Russia – came hours after Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that the content of the US-Russia talks “will definitely not be publicized."
Both statements said that “the United States will continue facilitating negotiations between both sides to achieve a peaceful resolution” of the war, now in its fourth year since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The agreements appear to be among the most concrete achievements in US President Donald Trump’s efforts to broker an end to the war since he took office two months ago, but they left plenty of things unclear – including how far Moscow may be ready to go toward a full cease-fire or a peace deal that leaves it short of subjugating Ukraine.
Here are some key questions.
Will A Black Sea Truce Be Implemented?
Both the United States and Russia suggested the main goal of this round was to reach agreement on a maritime cease-fire in the Black Sea, which would allow for the free flow of shipping in the strategic body of water and act as a stepping stone to a broader truce.
Russia and Ukraine both have Black Sea coastlines and Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, which Russia invaded and occupied in 2014, extends southward into it from the mainland. The Black Sea is a major conduit for exports of Ukrainian and Russian grain.
Ahead of the US-Russia meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated Russian claims that promises made to Moscow under a 2022 shipping safety agreement known as the Black Sea grain deal, which collapsed the following year when Russia withdrew amid mutual recriminations, had not been fulfilled.
On March 25, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated those claims again, suggesting that adversaries are suppressing Russian grain and fertilizer exports. The White House statement on the Russia talks said the United States would “help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions.”
Partial Cease-Fire, All-Out War: In Ukraine And Russia, A Harsh Reality Amid Peace Talks
That marked a significant incentive for Russia, but the devil may remain in the details.
In its own statement, the Kremlin said the halt on the use of force in the Black Sea would take effect after several specific actions are in place, demanding detailed measures that were not expressly mentioned by the White House. They included the lifting of sanctions against Rosselkhozbank, Russia’s state-owned agricultural lender, and other financial institutions, and their reconnection to the SWIFT payments system, which may be contingent on EU approval.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who took part in the US-Ukraine talks, called on social media for “additional technical consultations as soon as possible to agree on all the details and technical aspects of the implementation, monitoring and control of the arrangements."
He also said that Ukraine could “exercise [the] right to self-defense" if Russian warships move westward from the eastern part of the Black Sea.
There was no sign of a direct agreement between Ukraine and Russia, potentially increasing the chances of differing interpretations, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticized aspects of the US-Russia agreement.
"As far as we know, the Russians raised the issue of the American side helping the Russians transport their agricultural…products. That is about ports, tariffs, and so on,” he said. “We did not agree to this…. We believe that this is a weakening of positions and a weakening of sanctions."
What About A Pause In Strikes On Energy Facilities?
The talks in Riyadh came after Trump’s proposal for a full 30-day cease-fire -- a cessation of hostilities on land, at sea, and in the air -- was accepted by Ukraine on March 11 but ran up against Russian resistance. After Trump spoke separately to Putin and Zelenskyy, Kyiv and Moscow agreed in principle last week to a narrower truce.
But White House and Kremlin readouts after the Trump-Putin phone call on March 18 included a small but substantial difference. The US statement said the leaders “agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure cease-fire,” while the Russian statement described a narrower halt to attacks on “energy infrastructure.”
The Kremlin said Putin had praised the initiative and “immediately gave the Russian military the corresponding command,” but Ukraine accused Russia of continuing attacks on infrastructure, including energy facilities.
In its parallel statements on March 25, the White House statement did not mention infrastructure specifically, saying that the countries had “agreed to develop measures for implementing [agreements] to ban strikes against energy facilities of Russia and Ukraine.”
Who Will Control What?
A major question looming over any cease-fire agreement or eventual peace pact is the question of territory: How much of Ukraine, if any, will Russia control and under what circumstances?
Speaking to reporters in Washington on March 24, Trump suggested that the negotiations in Riyadh were touching on this.
"We're talking about territory right now. We're talking about lines of demarcation,” Trump said.
Russia currently occupies about one-fifth of Ukraine: all of Crimea, almost all of the Luhansk region, as well as parts of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson regions -- but not the capitals of the last two. In September 2022, Putin baselessly declared the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson regions to belong to Russia in their entirety, including the areas that are under Ukrainian control.
Moscow says Ukraine must pull its forces from the regions and insists that they be recognized as Russian. Zelenskyy has acknowledged that Kyiv may be unable to regain control over the whole country soon. Any cease-fire agreed in the near future seems likely to leave much of the occupied territory in Russian hands, but Ukraine vows never to accept any formal or permanent change of its borders.
The White House statements on the Riyadh talks made no mention of territory.
What About That Rare Minerals Deal?
On March 25, Zelenskyy told journalists that the United States has proposed a comprehensive new version of a mineral resources deal that have been under discussion for months. In his comments on March 24, Trump said that Washington and Kyiv would “soon”sign an agreement on joint development of Ukraine’s rare minerals and other natural resources, which US officials say would help provide Ukraine with security and be an important part of a solution to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Signing the deal was expected when Zelenskyy visited the White House on February 28, but that meeting ended in acrimony after Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated the Ukrainian president in an unprecedented exchange before reporters in the Oval Office.
Tensions have cooled since then, and an agreement on rare minerals could be a sign of solidarity between Ukraine and the United States as Trump’s efforts to end the war continue.
What’s Russia’s Game?
Trump said that Putin’s response to the proposal for a full 30-day cease-fire was “we are for it, but there are nuances."
Among other things, those “nuances” included a call for Ukraine’s backers to stop sending weapons and for Kyiv to stop mobilizing soldiers during the truce -- while Russia would not be subject to such restrictions.
Kyiv has accused Moscow of playing for time and feigning interest in ending the war. And analysts say Russia may be deliberately dragging out the process in the hopes of moving as close to its goals as it can -- through diplomacy and on the battlefield.
“For the moment this process has been entirely cost-free from a Russian perspective. And I think the lesson they're drawing from this is that if they go slowly, first of all they can extract concessions from the Americans, and potentially from the Europeans, just in order to keep Russia at the table,” Sam Greene, a professor at the King's Russia Institute and director of democratic resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said on a podcast on March 20.
Greene suggested that regardless of what they can agree upon, there is a gap between the goals of Trump and Putin when it comes to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Trump wants “an end to this war,” he said, while “Russia wants an outcome to this war that leaves it in a position of dominion in Ukraine. I think Russia believes it can afford to be flexible in terms of how that dominion is executed...so long as it is dominant."
