Analysis: Ukraine ceasefire deal looks like a Russian wishlist tied with a US bow

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Ukraine ceasefire deal looks like a Russian wishlist tied with a US bow

A moratorium on attacks on ships in the Black Sea seems to be contingent on sanctions relief – a key Kremlin demand

Andrew Roth in Washington
Tue 25 Mar 2025 19.30 GMT
Last modified on Tue 25 Mar 2025 21.28 GMT

The Kremlin is pressing its advantage with a White House that is impatient to show that Donald Trump is the only leader who can deliver peace in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.

At first blush, the deal agreed by US negotiators in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday offers concession on concession to the Kremlin, leaving observers to question whether Russia had given anything to secure its first offer of sanctions relief since the beginning of the war.

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a moratorium on attacking each other’s ships in the Black Sea – a theatre of the war where Ukraine’s use of seaborne drones and special operations units had put the Russians on the defensive, largely penning the Russian fleet close to the shore.

But the White House account of the agreement did not even include the fine print. In its readout, the Kremlin said that it would only implement the Black Sea ceasefire once the US delivers sanctions relief on Russian agricultural products and fertilisers, as well as delisting a major state-owned bank called Rosselkhozbank that services the Russian agricultural industry.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/25/russia-ukraine-ceasefire-trump

[SSJVegeta]

1. Any deal must be agreed to by Ukraine. As long as it is, I support it.