Russia and Ukraine Agree to ‘Ceasefire’ in Black Sea

The White House announced that Ukraine and Russia agreed to a ceasefire in the Black Sea to ensure safe navigation as they move closer toward a peace deal.

The agreement also implements a ban on attacks by the two countries on each other's energy facilities.

It is the clearest move to a wider ceasefire deal that the Trump administration sees as a positive step toward ending the war.

The agreements reached in Saudi Arabia follow talks initiated by President Donald Trump, who has vowed to swiftly end the war.

'The United States and Russia have agreed to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea,' the White House said in a statement.

Both countries said they would rely on the U.S. to enforce the deals as discussions remain ongoing in Jeddah.

'If the Russians violate this, then I have a direct question for President Trump. If they violate, here is the evidence - we ask for sanctions, we ask for weapons, etc,' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: 'We will need clear guarantees. And given the sad experience of agreements with just Kyiv, the guarantees can only be the result of an order from Washington to Zelenskiy and his team to do one thing and not the other.'

Under the agreement with Moscow, Washington promised to help restore Russian access to markets for its agricultural and fertiliser exports. The Kremlin said this would require lifting some sanctions.

The talks followed separate phone calls last week between Trump and the two presidents, Zelenskiy and Vladimir Putin. Putin rejected Trump's proposal for a full ceasefire lasting 30 days, which Ukraine had previously endorsed.

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 the 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 warfighting capability.

More recently, Ukraine has been launching long-range strikes on Russian oil and gas targets, which it says provide fuel for Russian troops and income to fund its war effort.

Early in the war, Russia imposed a de facto naval blockade on Ukraine, one of the world's biggest grain exporters, which threatened to worsen a global food crisis.

But maritime battles have been only a comparatively small part of the war since 2023, when Russia withdrew its naval forces from the eastern Black Sea after a number of successful Ukrainian attacks.

Kyiv was 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.

Trump is pressing both sides to bring a swift end to the war, a goal he promised to achieve when he ran for president last year.

At the same time he is pursuing a rapid rapprochement with Russia that Washington and Moscow say could lead to lucrative business opportunities.

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 the entirety of four regions claimed by Russia as its own.

Ukraine has rejected that as tantamount to surrender.