Three rounds and three days of discussions: What Washington, Moscow and Kiev talked about in Riyadh

On March 23-25, several rounds of alternative negotiations were held in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) between the delegations of Ukraine and the United States, as well as between the United States and representatives of the Russian Federation, New Voice reports.

The parties called these negotiations "technical", as they were supposed to agree on the details of a 30-day ceasefire.

Western media reported on an upcoming "joint statement" by the United States and Russia after their 12-hour talks, but this never happened. Instead, the American delegation met twice with the Ukrainian delegation. Ukraine has so far limited itself to a brief official statement after the first of these rounds.

How the Riyadh talks went

The US planned these talks on the model of "shuttle" diplomacy, where Washington acts as a mediator or intermediary between countries that do not communicate directly with each other. Therefore, there were no direct negotiations between Ukraine and Russia or trilateral contacts in the Ukraine-US-Russia format in Riyadh.

Instead, three rounds of negotiations were held:

On March 23, the Ukrainian and US delegations talked for five hours with one interruption.

On March 24, 12-hour talks between the US and Russia took place with several interruptions, during which journalists were not allowed into the Ritz-Carlton hotel.

On March 25, another short round of Ukrainian-US negotiations was held, lasting about an hour.

The rounds of negotiations in Riyadh were announced in advance as "technical", so the countries sent delegations that were not at the same high level as those at the previous talks in Saudi Arabia.

The Ukrainian delegation was represented by the Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov, Deputy Chief of Staff of the President, former commander of the 93rd Motorized Rifle Brigade Kholodny Yar Pavlo Palisa, Deputy Chief of the OP Igor Zhovkva, Deputy Minister of Energy Mykola Kolisnik, State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Alexander Karasevich.

The United States sent a delegation led by Senior Director of the US National Security Council Andrew Peake and US Director of Policy Planning Michael Anton.

Russia was represented by Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Grigory Karasin and Advisor to the Director of the Russian Federal Security Service Sergey Beseda, former head of the 5th FSB Service, which is considered responsible for the failure of Russian intelligence in Ukraine. It was this service that prepared analytical reports for the Kremlin on the eve of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Topics of the negotiations and positions of Ukraine, the United States and Russia

During the three-day negotiations, the following probable details and positions of the parties became known.

The main topic was the discussion and agreement on a moratorium on strikes in the Black Sea. Reuters reported that the American delegation hopes to conclude an agreement with representatives of Ukraine and Russia on a ceasefire in the Black Sea after the talks in Riyadh to ensure freedom of navigation.

"We talked about a mutual ceasefire - we will not attack their facilities at sea, including river ones, they will not attack our facilities and our ports“, said Sergei Leshchenko, advisor to the head of the OP, describing the details of the first round of negotiations between the delegations of Ukraine and the United States. According to him, this applies not only to the ports of Odessa, where shipping takes place, but also to Odessa, which is currently under attack.

Russia interprets the main topic of the negotiations as its alleged desire to restore the “grain agreement“, from which the Russian Federation withdrew in the summer of 2023 (Black Sea Grain Initiative).

"On the agenda is the issue of the Black Sea Initiative and all aspects related to the renewal of this initiative. This was President Trump's proposal and President Putin agreed to it.

"It was with this mandate that our delegation went to Riyadh“, said Kremlin spokesman Peskov regarding the position of the Russian Federation. Later, Sergei Lavrov stated that “we wanted there to be no ambiguities this time“ — because, according to them, in 2022-2023, when the grain agreement was in force, the West supposedly "did everything to protect Ukraine as much as possible and punish the Russian Federation as much as possible". This is precisely the position that the Kremlin, according to Lavrov, was trying to convey to the Americans in Saudi Arabia.

Ukraine and the United States also discussed "energy sector issues", Umerov later reported. Apparently, the point was to agree on a regime to halt strikes on energy and infrastructure, which Putin and Trump were trying to negotiate. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier said that Ukraine would provide its partners with "a list of civilian facilities, energy facilities and infrastructure facilities" to negotiate the details of such a moratorium on strikes.

US President Donald Trump, amid several days of talks in Saudi Arabia, said that the US delegation had generally raised the issues of Ukrainian territories and nuclear power plants during the negotiation process.

''Now we are talking about territory. We are talking about demarcation lines, we are talking about energy, ownership of plants. "Some say that the power plant (apparently the "Zapadnaya" nuclear power plant) should belong to the United States because we have experience," Trump noted.

The most sensational detail of the negotiations was reported by the Russian publication The Moscow Times, citing sources in the Russian Federation. According to it, the Russian delegation in the negotiations with the United States demanded control over all the territories of four regions of Ukraine - Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson - within their administrative borders. At the same time, the Russian negotiators referred to the Russian constitution, which supposedly "enforces their annexation," the publication writes. One of the Moscow Times interlocutors said that the Kremlin hopes for possible pressure from Washington for the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the territories occupied by Russia. "Either [US President Donald] Trump will influence them [Ukrainian armed forces] to leave, or they will tell us: "Enter into protracted negotiations and at the same time use military force to establish control".

"This is the worst option for us, because crossing rivers is always a painful operation," the Russian official said. According to him, as an alternative, Russia could try to seize part of another Ukrainian region, for example Dnipropetrovsk or Sumy, and then offer an exchange for Kherson and Zaporizhia.