Black Sea
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that any new deal would have to be accompanied by strict conditions.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told on Tuesday (March 25, 2025) that discussions between U.S. and Russian diplomats in Saudi Arabia on Monday (March 24, 2025) were about the security of shipping in the Black Sea and that a new agreement on the issue was conceivable.
On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made public that talks between Russian and U.S. officials, conducted in Saudi Arabia on Monday, were focused on the security of shipping in the Black Sea. Lavrov stated that one can make a new deal on this issue.
But Lavrov emphasized that any such new agreement will be subject to the fulfillment of stringent conditions. One of such conditions, Russia said, would be the inspections of ships in order to prevent them from carrying weapons when their cargo holds were empty.
Furthermore, Lavrov added that substantial problems in the past have involved Rus grain and fertilizers’ exports. Those challenges have presented serious issues, yet it’s unknown whether those issues were being addressed in recent negotiations. Possible effects on the global market as well as potential implications for subsequent U.S.-Russia relations weren’t specified.
Russia and the US are analyzing the results of the Riyadh talks on Ukraine: Kremlin
Russia and the United States were studying the outcome of negotiations between their officials in Saudi Arabia on Monday, the Kremlin stated, refusing to provide information about the discussions that both countries had promised to concentrate on a possible naval ceasefire.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained to journalists that the delegations, which had been examining the possibility of some sort of arrangement between Rus and Ukraine on the issue of Black Sea navigation along with other questions, had submitted their reports back to their respective capitals.
“You see, we are discussing technical negotiations going far into the details. Hence, naturally, the substance of such negotiations will most certainly not be published. That should not be expected,” Peskov said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained that the delegations explored the possibility of some kind of agreement between Rus and Ukraine on navigation in the Black Sea and other things.
“Secondly, I say once again, the reports to the capitals are already being processed. Only then can we speak of some understandings.”
There was no discussion yet of a three-way meeting with Rus, the U.S. and Ukraine, Peskov said.
He further stated that a further conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump was not planned at present but that a conversation could be organized quickly if necessary.
When the two leaders last conversed, Putin rejected an offer by Trump for a complete 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine but agreed to a moratorium on targeting Ukrainian energy sites.
Real-time Russia-Ukraine war: Moscow claims US talks are “useful, intense”
Rus assured that it would keep “productive” negotiations going with the US regarding the situation in Ukraine and that it will seek to make other nations as well as the United Nations participate.
The Kremlin reports that Moscow and Washington are studying the result of the 12-hour Monday talks in Saudi Arabia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy adds that the representatives from his nation and the US will have more meetings.
In the meantime, the battle rages on; Ukraine reports that Rus fired dozens of drones and a ballistic missile in an overnight assault.
The Czech president claims that a “compromise” is likely to be reached in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Czech President Petr Pavel has stated that a “compromise solution” is the best outcome of the war between Rus and Ukraine.
No such compromise, however, should come in the form of official recognition of occupied Ukrainian territories as Russian, but more as an existing “reality on the ground”, Pavel stated in an interview with news website European Pravda.
In the future, it is important that Ukraine’s allies “sustain support” for the war-torn nation so that “it will be able to hold the territory, not to lose any further and prepare conditions very soon for a ceasefire and then peace”, he stated.
