Ukraine: ‘Russia does not want to end this war’
The Kremlin has launched a drone barrage at Ukraine and demanded the global community lift sanctions on Russia before they commit to the agreed upon ceasefire at sea.
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Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of derailing a US-brokered deal that could see the warring countries halt attacks on the Black Sea and against energy sites.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced a barrage of more than 100 drones launched by Russia overnight, hours after Kyiv agreed to a framework for a halt in fighting in the key waterway.
The Kremlin said the agreement to halt Black Sea strikes could come into force only after the lifting of restrictions on its agriculture sector.
Kyiv, which has voiced readiness to agree a complete 30-day ceasefire, said it came into effect when the US published details of the agreement late Tuesday.
“Launching such large-scale attacks after ceasefire negotiations is a clear signal to the whole world that Moscow is not going to pursue real peace,” Mr Zelensky posted on social media.
Mr Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said they were committed to a lasting truce.
“We demonstrated we are very serious; the Americans understood,” he told Reuters.
Mr Yermak slammed Russia’s subsequent sanctions demands before implementing the Black Sea ceasefire.
“Russia is just playing games,” he said.
“President Trump wants to end this war, this is great. Russia does not want to end this war.”
The European Union said that it would not lift or amend its sanctions on Russia before the “unconditional” withdrawal of Moscow’s forces from Ukraine.
The “unconditional withdrawal of all Russian military forces from the entire territory of Ukraine would be one of the main preconditions to amend or lift sanctions,” said a European Commission spokesperson.
Meanwhile NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte made it clear Russia must steer well clear of their member states.
Mr Rutte made the comments in Warsaw alongside the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
“If anyone were to miscalculate and think they can get away with an attack on Poland or on any other ally, they will be met with the full force of this fierce alliance,” Mr Rutte said.
“Our reaction will be devastating. This has to be very clear to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and anyone else who wants to attack us.”
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ZELENSKY REVEALS HOW TRUMP STOUSH UNFOLDED
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has broken his silence on his Oval Office blow-up with Donald Trump – revealing the moment it all went wrong.
In an interview with TIME, the Ukrainian President gave details about the explosive February meeting, which he believes was triggered by a mishandled gift.
Among the tokens Mr Zelensky intended to present Mr Trump with was the championship belt of world heavyweight boxer Oleksandr Usyk, which the leader put on the table beside him when he sat down in the Oval Office.
When the broadcast of the meeting began, however, Mr Zelensky handed Mr Trump a different gift instead: a folder containing a series of photographs of Ukrainian prisoners of war following their time in Russian captivity.
“In that moment there was the sense of not being allies, or not taking the position of an ally,” Mr Zelensky said.
Mr Trump described the images as “tough stuff” – and it was then that, according to some US officials, the meeting went wrong.
The photos “seemed to get Trump’s guard up, as though he were being blamed for the suffering of those soldiers”, TIME reported.
Mr Zelensky said he stood by the decision to show the US President the photos, arguing he had hoped to “show … my values”.
“(Mr Trump) has family, loved ones, children. He has to feel the things that every person feels,” he said.
“But then, well, the conversation went in another direction … In that moment there was the sense of not being allies, or not taking the position of an ally. In that conversation, I was defending the dignity of Ukraine.”
RUSSIA AND UKRAINE AGREE TO BLACK SEA TRUCE
It comes as Ukraine and Russia have agreed to stop military strikes in the Black Sea, with Moscow demanding the US give direct orders to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept the deal.
After both sides failed to reach a consensus on a wider ceasefire agreement with US mediators on Tuesday, local time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Kremlin will agree to at least a pause in the busy trade route as long as it gets guarantees from the Trump administration.
“We will need clear guarantees,” Mr Lavrov said in televised comments. “And given the sad experience of agreements with just Kyiv, the guarantees can only be the result of an order from Washington to Zelensky and his team to do one thing and not the other.
“And it seems to me that our American partners have received this signal,” he said. “They understand that only Washington can achieve positive results in stopping terrorist attacks, stopping shelling of civilian infrastructure, energy infrastructure not related to the military-industrial complex.”
The Trump White House on Tuesday said Ukraine also has agreed to the limited ceasefire deal.
After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, both sides initially agreed to a maritime ceasefire that allowed Kyiv to safely export nearly 33 million metric tons of grain, as Ukraine is one of the world’s largest suppliers of wheat.
But Moscow withdrew from the truce a year later after being hit with sanctions over its invasion, with maritime attacks continuing since then.
The new deal would open up the Black Sea for Ukraine’s grain export, as well as Russia’s profitable grain and fertiliser exports.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense noted that the movement of Russian warships outside the “eastern part of the Black Sea” would constitute a violation to the agreement and stand as a “threat to the national security of Ukraine.”
“In this case Ukraine will have full right to exercise right to self-defences,” the ministry said in a statement.
The two sides had previously agreed to limit their land attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure after a meeting between President Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, only for Moscow to attack Ukraine’s energy grid hours later.
US officials hope that the signing of a Black Sea truce could serve as a stepping stone for a greater ceasefire deal to end the war, which has gone on for more than three years.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was still “analysing” the results of the latest discussions Tuesday after both Russia and the US failed to make a joint statement on the results.
He accused Western countries of trying to “contain” Russia like “Napoleon and Hitler.”
Ukraine has not yet commented on the outcome of its talks.
The Kremlin said earlier that Russia was still “analysing” the results of its negotiations, that the “content” of the discussions would not be made public and that there was no “specific” date for another meeting.
The Trump administration has made statements sympathetic towards Russia, with Kyiv and European allies worried it will yield to the Kremlin’s demands.
‘RIGHT STEPS’: ZELENSKY WELCOMES NEW AGREEMENTS
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday welcomed US-brokered agreements towards Ukraine and Russia halting strikes in the Black Sea and on energy infrastructure, but criticised Washington for agreeing to ease restrictions on Russian exports.
An earlier White House statement on the issue did not clearly state when such a halt would come into effect, or which restrictions would be lifted, and initial statements from Kyiv and Moscow showed apparent disagreements.
The agreements were struck by US negotiators who met separately over three days in the Saudi capital Riyadh with delegations from Ukraine and Russia.
“These were the right meetings, the right decisions, the right steps. No one can accuse Ukraine of not moving towards sustainable peace after this,” Mr Zelensky said during a press conference in Kyiv.
But it was “too early to say that it will work”, he said.
Mr Zelensky also criticised statements by White House envoy Steve Witkoff, who praised Russian leader Vladimir Putin and appeared to legitimise Russia’s annexation of some Ukrainian regions.
The comments by Mr Witkoff, in an interview with the right-wing podcast host Tucker Carlson, were seen in Kyiv as another sign of how far some in US President Donald Trump’s administration have shifted away from Ukraine toward Russia.
WHITE HOUSE: US WILL SUPPORT RUSSIA IN WORLD MARKET
The United States said it will support Russian fertiliser exports, a grievance for Moscow after sweeping sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.
“The United States will help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertiliser exports, lower maritime insurance costs and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions,” a White House statement said.
But Russia said that a US-brokered agreement to halt military activity in the Black Sea would only take effect once certain sanctions were lifted, including those targeting its state-owned agricultural lender.
The Kremlin said the truce would “enter into force after the lifting of sanctions on Rosselkhozbank (Russia’s state-owned agricultural lender) and other financial institutions involved in providing international trade operations in food and fertilisers.”
It also called for those institutions to be reconnected to the SWIFT network, an international payment system that some Russian banks have been blocked from using.
The West has not directly sanctioned Russian agriculture, but Moscow has long complained that restrictions on shipping insurance and its state lender Rosselkhozbank – which provides financing to agribusiness – have frustrated its exports.
RUSSIA AND UKRAINE ESCALATE DRONE ATTACKS
The Saudi talks came as both Russia and Ukraine escalate their attacks on the ground, with Kyiv saying its air defence units had downed 78 out of 139 drones launched by Russia Tuesday.
In Ukraine’s northeastern city of Sumy, officials said the toll from a Russian strike a day earlier climbed to 101 wounded, including 23 children.
The strike hit a residential area in the city near the Russian border as negotiations were taking place in Riyadh.
The local administration in Sumy said 14 adults and 16 children were in hospital, with one adult and one child in “serious condition.” Russia has advanced in some areas of the front for months and the Kremlin has praised troops for recently retaking swathes of territory held by Ukraine in the border region of Kursk.
Moscow’s defence ministry on Tuesday claimed to have captured two more villages in southern and eastern Ukraine.
It occupies much of the Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Russia has repeatedly said it will not give up any territory it has seized.
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Originally published as Ukraine: ‘Russia does not want to end this war’
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