The United States reached deals on Tuesday with Ukraine and Russia to pause their attacks at sea and against energy targets, with Washington agreeing to push to lift some sanctions against Moscow.
The separate agreements are the first formal commitments by the two warring sides since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, who is pushing for an end to the war in Ukraine and a rapid rapprochement with Moscow that has alarmed Kyiv and European countries.
The U.S. agreement with Russia goes further than the agreement with Ukraine, with Washington committing to help seek the lifting of international sanctions on Russian agriculture and fertiliser exports, long a Russian demand.
The Kremlin said the Black Sea agreements would not come into effect unless links between some Russian banks and the international financial system were restored.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this was untrue, and that the deals did not require sanctions relief to come into force.
"Unfortunately, even now, even today, on the very day of negotiations, we see how the Russians have already begun to manipulate," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. "They are already trying to distort agreements and, in fact, deceive both our intermediaries and the entire world."
Kyiv and Moscow both said they would rely on Washington to enforce the deals, while expressing scepticism that the other side would abide by them.
"We will need clear guarantees," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "And given the sad experience of agreements with just Kyiv, the guarantees can only be the result of an order from Washington to Zelenskyy and his team to do one thing and not the other."
Zelenskyy said the truce agreements would take effect immediately, and that if Russia violated them he would ask Trump to impose additional sanctions on Moscow and provide more weapons for Ukraine.
"We have no faith in the Russians, but we will be constructive," he said.
The deals were reached after parallel talks in Saudi Arabia that followed separate phone calls last week between Trump and the two presidents, Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin.
Putin rejected Trump's proposal for a full ceasefire lasting 30 days, which Ukraine had previously endorsed.
"We are making a lot of progress," Trump told reporters on Tuesday, while adding there was "tremendous animosity" in the talks.
"There's a lot of hatred, as you can probably tell, and it allows for people to get together, mediated, arbitrated, and see if we can get it stopped. And I think it will work."
Washington has softened its rhetoric towards Russia in recent days, with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff saying he did not "regard Putin as a bad guy," alarming European officials who consider the Russian leader a dangerous enemy.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said Kyiv would regard any movement of Russian military vessels outside the eastern part of the Black Sea as a violation and a threat, in which case Ukraine would have full right to self-defence.
Russia has attacked Ukraine's power grid with missiles and drones throughout the war, arguing that civil energy infrastructure is a legitimate target because it helps Ukraine's fighting capability.
More recently, Ukraine has been launching long-range strikes on Russian oil and gas targets, which it says provide fuel for Russia's troops and income to fund its war effort.
The Kremlin said the pause in attacks on energy would last for 30 days from March 18, when Putin first discussed it with Trump. Ukraine had said last week it would accept such a pause only after a formal agreement.
The agreement on a truce at sea addresses an issue that was critical early in the war, when Russia imposed a de facto naval blockade on Ukraine, one of the world's biggest grain exporters, worsening a global food crisis.
More recently, maritime battles have been a comparatively small part of the war since Russia withdrew its naval forces from the eastern Black Sea after a number of successful Ukrainian attacks.
Kyiv has been able to reopen its ports and resume exports at around pre-war levels, despite the collapse of a previous U.N.-brokered Black Sea shipping agreement, but its ports have come under regular air attack. Zelenskyy said the agreement would bar such strikes.
Moscow said the agreement would require sanctions relief including restoring links between Russia's agricultural export bank and the SWIFT international payments system. That and other steps could require agreement from European countries.
Trump has been pressing Moscow and Kyiv to bring a rapid end to the war, a goal he promised to achieve when he ran for president last year.
Ukraine and its European allies fear Trump could strike a hasty deal with Putin that undermines their security and caves in to Russian demands, including for Kyiv to abandon its NATO ambitions and give up land claimed by Moscow.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
40 Comments
Underworld
Nope. That would be a disaster. Trump can’t afford to ease sanctions. If he does, his legacy will be ruined.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Once again, the team that can't shoot straight offering concessions to russia for no gd reason. The sooner these people are out of the picture the better.
Hercolobus
Russia and NATO. Ukraine only follows orders.
bass4funk
Good
theFu
All or nothing. Does Trump not have the stones for this "game"?
Sanctions should only be reduced based on positive, long-term, actions by Russia. Russia needs to leave Ukraine territory, back to the 1994 borders, start paying restitution to Ukraine and remove all Russian military from within 100 nm of the Ukraine border, regardless of country. No sneaking over through Belarus, for example.
Everything that Russia stole including priceless art, airplanes, and children need to be returned as well. And for every Ukrainian killed, Russia needs to pay $1M to the family.
Anything less is disrespectful. Unprovoked war can never seem to "pay". I expect Russia to be paying Ukraine for at least the next 20 yrs.
JJE
Excellent news for the world economy. Anyone with an on-switch knows Russia's agricultural exports are far more significant and necessary to stabilize global markets. This will include Belarus fertilizer too. Sanctions relief is a no-brainer.
The reason is the boomerang effect of the sanctions is actually hurting the west more. Plus, it is hurting the Global South (but the hypocrites don't care about that, despite their wolf whistling). Russian agricultural exports are a win-win for many people. This will help correct distorted markets.
Safe bet is Kyiv will violate it. That decent innocent civilian Kerch Bridge is off limits too and they won't be able to resist.
stormcrow
Where are the 20,000 Ukrainian kids?!
That should be the first item taken care of since it is a war crime in progress.
stormcrow
The Russians are as bad as Hamas when it comes to taking hostages, and they’re just children for crying out loud.
HopeSpringsEternal
Step by step progress towards Peace, Rome wasn't built in a day and this war's been raging for about 11 years.
It's dual track, building a long-term framework while stopping the fighting in the very short-term.
DJT delivering leadership to solve world's problems.
JJE
Ukraine isn't getting one square inch of their former territory back. Indeed, more will be handed over before this is over. Watch.
This was a provoked conflict, with a long list of ingredients that provoked it. Witkoff is absolutely right on this and more. He is also right that Putin is not a baddie. The media whipped up people's emotions by unfairly demonizing one side.
He understands the provoking factors and the previous one-sided, simplistic, false propaganda-like narrative, underpinned by a very controversial nasty ideology, that ignored the true history of this complex provoked conflict.
Only then can it be sorted out between the great powers, with a fair and just peace for Russia.
HopeSpringsEternal
US Economic normalization with Russia definitely part of this peace process, meaning sanctions come off.
Economic activity, the solution to push down global inflation and build and maintain friendly global relations with shared interests = not possible with sanctions.
Mr Kipling
OK, but please come back to reality. We are not living in a fantasy world.
At least someone has been paying attention. Though there may be some land handovers. For example, I can see the Zaparizhzhia power plant handed back to Ukraine in return for parts of the Dombas still under Ukrainian control.
JJE
That NPP will not be handed to anyone. The power may be supplied elsewhere in the future, but it won't change management from now ever again. Saw some officials in Moscow stating as much.
And this goes to one of the things of the breakup of the USSR - some constituent republics or whatever wanted to leave with the goodies gifted them from that Union, and wanted to leave not as they originally joined, but with added territory and infrastructure from Russia.
Not how Moscow rolls, especially if they don't abide by constitutional neutrality. In that case, there will be repossession programs.
NZ
always good to see some progress towards peace.
even small one but still progress.
good luck with your negotiations.
Fos
Let’s put into context few things here. The US administration has sent over 110 billions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine since the start of the conflict. The White House has swiftly taken over Russian gas charging four times as much, benefiting Texas oil companies. Not to mention that American LNG is highly polluting for the global environment, something that legacy media does not reveal.
A reminder that the top 5 weapons manufacturers in the world are all American, with US financial stocks on all time high. And now Washington is trying to loot the country of Ukraine by getting hold of their main resources, rare earth and minerals. And then you ask yourself why this conflict started in the first place and why the US big industrial military complex is so reluctant to end it.
englisc aspyrgend
As predicted, the real agenda of Trump and his supporting oligarchs is to shove their snouts in to the pig trough of Moscow’s money, regardless of the cost to everyone else.
geronimo2006
Clear win for Russia. Very poor deal for Ukraine. Ukraine can already export grain as it has pushed back the Russian navy so it is really getting nothing. But if Russia gets sanctions relief including those on it's banks it is massive for them. Meanwhile Russia's energy infrastructure will be protected while they can continue hitting Ukraine's civilian targets such as hospitals. Not a real ceasefire. Not a surprising outcome as the US has Whitkoff who may as well be sitting on Russia's side. The US under MAGA sees its' allies with disdain (for those who haven't read the texting scandal yet).
Underworld
JJE
Nope. Unprovoked imperialism.
Well he was talking about the four oblasts: Crimea, Donbas, and two more. What an absolute joke. He doesn’t even know the oblasts and worse. Completely unqualified.
Oh, I don’t know, murdering his opponents and starting wars of aggression is pretty bad.
Nothing unfair about it. Just follow the facts.
Blacklabel
Well look at that, what a positive development thanks to Trump and his team.
isabelle
Sanctions relief for an accused war criminal that -- unilaterally and unprovoked -- started the largest war in Europe since WWII is not a "no-brainer."
Former territory? I thought Putin said Ukraine wasn't a real country, and that its lands had always been part of Russia?
You're not suggesting that Russia stole this territory from Ukraine, are you?
Tsar Putin will not be pleased with you.
A fair and just peace is Putin withdrawing his invading hordes, paying his reparations, and submitting to his war crimes trial.
isabelle
And this is the guy running the negotiations: a real-estate businessman with zero understanding of international politics.
He can't even name the regions he's supposedly negotiating over, uses Russian terminology, and thinks that Crimea is part of the Donbass. He also doesn't know that the "referendums" were a total sham.
...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/03/22/donald-trump-envoy-not-knowing-names-of-russia-ukraine-land/
Critics were quick to point out that Mr Witkoff had confused Crimea for one of the four occupied eastern territories, when in fact it is an area on the Black Sea that was seized by the Kremlin in 2014. They also noted that “Lugansk” is the Russian name for the territory known as “Luhansk” in Ukrainian.
“He cites a sham vote organised by the FSB as ‘evidence’ that people in these regions want to join Russia ... It’s deeply concerning that someone who is supposed to be a neutral negotiator between two warring countries is siding with the aggressor and spreading their propaganda.”
JJE
No, I am certainly not. It wasn't and they were.
The territory of Novorossiya is on the historical record. Most 'territory' was gifted by the Tsars, Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev (Crimea in 1954). The extent of what needs to be handed back now - in other words what will satisfy Moscow - will probably be the former, as the latter has already returned, and no one wants the western regions back (except perhaps their neighbors to the immediate west, from where they came).
JJE
Everyone in Lugansk calls it Lugansk. Go there and ask them.
TaiwanIsNotChina
There was a Black Sea ceasefire during the Biden administration so I guess welcome back to 2023.
JJE
Important to observe the Black Sea Grain Initiative referred to above was between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN - with the latter two acting as intermediaries.
Let's not rewrite history and pretend it was an initiative of the previous administration.
Underworld
JJE
And everyone in Luhansk, calls it Luhansk.
Underworld
JJE
It’s not required. Ukraine rules the Black Sea.
falseflagsteve
Peace is in sight.
Sanity Prevails!
JJE
Main photo:
as per caption a Russian floating dock. Built in a Turkish shipyard, this is FD05 project to provide new docks to the Russian company Atomflot, which maintains the only fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers on earth. And built specifically to service the new generation of Project 22220 nuclear-powered icebreakers now being rolled out. The huge dock was built in record time for a great price.
Destination Murmansk (where said company is based), the vessel is being taken from the Black Sea to the Don River, from where it will follow the Volga-Don Waterway to the Baltic Sea. After that, it will pass through the White Sea-Baltic Canal to reach the White and Barents Seas - all through Russia.
This is indicative of the deepening economic cooperation between Turkey and Russia. That photo could just be sections of the final product.
TaiwanIsNotChina
A laughable assertion.
TaiwanIsNotChina
A reminder the the next 5 weapons manufacturers are all Chinese.
A fascist war of aggression by russia to steal Ukraine's territory.
chatanista
Trump is obviously working pretty hard on getting this ceasefire deal done. He deserves credit for the progress made to date.
isabelle
So, given that supposedly "Ukraine isn't a real country but has always been part of Russia," are you saying that the Tsars gifted territory to themselves?
If so, that's rather bizarre.
isabelle
Trump has done little but repeat Putin's propaganda, and pressure the victim rather than the aggressor.
And appointed another clueless real-estate developer to do the same.
JJE
Clarification on main photo: that floating dock pictured is the entire hull product. The large protrusions on each side will eventually mount rotating cranes - that can slide down the full length of vessel. The dock has its own autonomous propulsion and crew quarters, so it can move around in the Kola Bay, where it will operate. One can see the multiple flights of stairs either side going up the structure (opposite end too).
https://mebspb.com/teche/FD05e.html
Underworld
chatanista
Which is nothing. However, if Trump lifts sanctions, like Putin is alluding to, then he will have gone backwards.
TokyoLiving
That truce is nothing..
The war isn't over..
Blacklabel
We have come a looooooong way forward under Trump to get to “a truce is nothing” huh?
falseflagsteve
Seems like a few people aren’t happy with the beginnings of peace. I cannot fathom why, we need peace and stability for the world to run properly.