A Russian negotiator said on Tuesday that talks between Russian and US officials about a partial truce in Ukraine were useful and would continue and that it wants to include the United Nations and other countries in the discussions with the United States.
“We talked about everything, it was an intense dialogue, not easy, but very useful for us and the Americans,” Grigory Karasin told the Russia’s TASS news agency. “We will continue it,” he said after the teams held 12 hours of negotiations in a hotel in Saudi Arabia.
He added, “We will continue” the talks, “adding in the international community, above all the United Nations and certain countries,” Karasin told TASS.
US President Donald Trump is working toward a quick resolution to the three-year war and hopes the talks in Saudi Arabia will help achieve progress.
The Ukrainian negotiating team remained in Riyadh, the Saudi Capital, for another day to meet with US representatives, according to the news agency AFP.
Earlier this month, talks took place in Jeddah, shortly after Trump criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House. During those talks, Kyiv accepted a US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire, but Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected it.
Originally, US-Ukraine and US-Russia talks were planned to happen at the same time, allowing the United States to mediate between both sides. Now, they are being held one after the other.
During a phone call with Trump, Putin rejected the US-Ukrainian request for a full and immediate 30-day truce. Instead, he suggested stopping attacks on energy facilities.
The meetings in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, were expected to focus on the details of a tentative agreement between Russia and Ukraine to temporarily halt strikes on energy infrastructure.
Last week, the countries traded accusations of attacks against each other’s energy infrastructure, highlighting the lack of trust between the two countries and how tenuous any deal could be.
Both sides are also discussing the possible return of the Black Sea Initiative, which was first brokered by Turkey and the United Nations in 2022. Russia withdrew from the agreement in 2023, saying the West did not meet its commitments to ease sanctions on Russian farm and fertilizer exports.
