Russia will only implement a White House-brokered agreement to stop using force in the Black Sea when sanctions imposed on its banks and exports over its invasion of Ukraine are lifted, the Kremlin said Tuesday, adding further uncertainty to both ongoing peace negotiations and the wider ambition of establishing a full cease-fire. Following days of separate talks with Ukrainian and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia, the White House said the two sides had agreed "to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea" while also agreeing to implement a previously announced pause on attacks against energy infrastructure. The agreements – which represent a potentially significant step forward, while falling far short of a 30-day full ceasefire initially proposed by the White House – were outlined in two separate, but very similar statements from the White House on Tuesday. But while Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed in a news conference that Ukraine had agreed to stop using military force in the Black Sea, the Kremlin released its own statement on the talks, which included far-reaching conditions for signing up to the partial truce. Those included lifting sanctions on its agricultural bank and other financial institutions and companies involved in exporting food and their re-connection to the US-controlled SWIFT international payments system. Those sanctions were imposed after Moscow launched its unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. On Tuesday afternoon, US President Donald Trump told reporters that his administration was looking at Russia's conditions. "We're thinking about all of them right now. There are five or six conditions. We are looking at all of them," the US president said at the White House. The Russian stipulations raise fresh questions as to how or when such a limited agreement could be implemented, and highlight what remains a significant gulf in expectations between the two warring sides. US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is also playing a key role in talks with Russia over its war in Ukraine. In his nightly address, Zelensky accused Moscow of trying to deceive mediators by adding new terms. "They are already trying to twist the agreements and actually deceive both our mediators and the whole world," he said. The White House's statements on the agreement with Russia made no explicit mention of Moscow's conditions but the US appeared to have offered different rewards to Kyiv and Moscow for sticking to their side of the bargain. It included a promise that it 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" – a possible indication of willingness by the US to lift some of its strict economic sanctions. The details and timeline of relaxing restrictions remain unclear, as does the future of European sanctions. Kyiv and its European allies have previously warned against lifting sanctions before a ceasefire is in place. The two White House statements also made clear both Ukraine and Russia had separately agreed to "develop measures for implementing" an agreement to ban strikes against energy facilities, in an extension of the previously announced partial truce. Zelensky confirmed this part of the agreement, adding that Ukraine had provided the US with a list of energy facilities it would like to be protected. The Kremlin said it had agreed on the list of Ukrainian and Russian energy facilities that would be off-limits, which included oil refineries, oil and gas pipelines, storage facilities, pumping stations, electricity power plants, substations, transformers, and distributors. It added that attacks on Russian and Ukrainian nuclear power plants and hydroelectric dams would also be prohibited "under the temporary moratorium on attacks on the energy system." The moratorium began on March 18 and would be in effect for 30 days but could be extended, the Kremlin added. Zelensky later rejected Moscow's claim that a pause on attacking the other's energy infrastructure had begun. "There is something that the Kremlin is lying about again: that the alleged silence in the Black Sea depends on the issue of sanctions and that the alleged date of the beginning of the silence on energy is 18 March," he said. Moscow always lies." In the statement outlining the results of the talks with Ukraine, the White House said the US "remains committed to helping achieve the exchange of prisoners of war, the release of civilian detainees, and the return of forcibly transferred Ukrainian children." As the Trump administration pushes for peace in Ukraine, Russian officials have previously indicated interest in US-led proposals, accompanied by strenuous conditions. Earlier this month, after Kyiv accepted a US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire covering the entire front line, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he "agreed with the proposal" in spirit but requested a number of concessions before signing up to it. The White House statements came after lengthy talks between the two sides on a potential ceasefire in Ukraine ended without a joint statement, despite expectations. The Russian state news agency Interfax quoted the first deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Council's Defence and Security Committee, Vladimir Chizhov, as telling state TV channel Rossiya-24 that the statement was "not adopted because of Ukraine's position." "The fact that they sat for 12 hours and seemed to agree on a joint statement, which however was not adopted due to Ukraine's position, is also very characteristic and symptomatic," Chizhov told Russia-24, according to Interfax. Kyiv was not represented in the talks and Chizhov did not give any details on "Ukraine's position." Trump has made ending the war in Ukraine one of his primary foreign policy goals. During his election campaign he went as far as promising he would achieve peace within 24 hours of being in office, something that more than three months in has so far remained elusive. Instead of a full truce, or a partial resolution of fundamental issues, such as the division of territory, the White House statements on Tuesday outlined an agreement similar to the Black Sea grain initiative that was in place earlier in the war. Brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, the deal allowed Ukraine to export grain by sea, with ships bypassing a Russian blockade of the country's Black Sea ports and navigating safe passage through the waterway to Turkey's Bosphorus Strait in order to reach global markets. Ukraine was one of the world's leading grain exporters before Russia's full-scale invasion. The initiative was signed in July 2022 and renewed three times before Russia allowed it to lapse in July 2023, saying that its demands had not been met. Moscow had for some time complained that it had been prevented from adequately exporting its own foodstuffs under the deal. — CNN
