{"id":421002,"date":"2025-03-11T19:05:03","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T18:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/03\/11\/colloqui-usa-ucraina-gedda-arabia-saudita\/"},"modified":"2025-03-12T11:17:46","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T10:17:46","slug":"in-saudi-arabia-ukraine-and-u-s-seek-understanding-on-ceasefire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/03\/11\/in-saudi-arabia-ukraine-and-u-s-seek-understanding-on-ceasefire\/","title":{"rendered":"In Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and U.S. seek understanding on ceasefire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Ukraine and the United States are at it again<\/strong>. Delegations from Kyiv and Washington are meeting these hours in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to agree<\/strong> a roadmap leading to the end of the war<\/strong> with Russia. On the table is Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong>‘s proposal for a truce in the air and at sea, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/strong> has hinted that the former Soviet republic will have to cede territories to Moscow.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the largest drone attack (over ninety) ever carried out in three years by the Kyiv military that left at least three dead in the Federation’s capital, the negotiating teams of Ukraine and the United States are meeting<\/strong> today (March 11) in Jeddah<\/strong> to try to unfreeze the complex ceasefire game<\/strong> and put a pause on the conflict that has been holding the world in suspense for three years. According to the head of the Ukrainian presidential office Andriy Yermak<\/strong>, the climate of the talks is “very constructive.”<\/p>\n

This is the first direct contact between the two countries, theoretically allies, since the heavy diplomatic tensions<\/strong> of recent weeks culminated in the ambush<\/a> by Donald Trump<\/strong> and his deputy J.D. Vance<\/strong> to Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong> last February 28 in the Oval Office. In the hopes of the Ukrainian leader, today’s talks (which he will not take part in directly, although he met yesterday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman<\/strong>) are meant to revive relations with Washington<\/strong> and achieve “practical results.”<\/p>\n

\"Volodymyr<\/a>
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (left) meets with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Jeddah, March 10, 2025 (photo via Imagoeconomica)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The U.S. president, who said it would be “easier” to negotiate with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin<\/strong> than with Zelensky (the latter would not be “ready” for peace<\/strong>, the tycoon had said in recent days), recently suspended<\/a> military aid to Kyiv\u2014including the sharing of intelligence information\u2014in an attempt to put pressure on the Ukrainians to force them to sit at the negotiating table<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

At the table in Jeddah, the president of the aggrieved country arrives with a proposal for a one-month truce in air and sea fighting<\/strong>. Zelensky’s goal is twofold: to test Russia’s good faith<\/strong>\u00a0in moving toward peace negotiations and,\u00a0at the same time,<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0to demonstrate its readiness<\/strong> to the White House tenant, with whom European allies had urged him<\/a> to mend fences. “Ukraine’s position in these talks will be fully constructive<\/strong>,” he wrote on X on the eve of the meeting.<\/p>\n

For his part, Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/strong>\u2014who leads the star-studded delegation, which also includes National Security Adviser Michael Waltz<\/strong> and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff<\/strong>\u2014said that “we need to understand the Ukrainian position and have a general idea of what concessions they would be willing to make, because you will not get a ceasefire <\/strong>and an end to this war\u00a0if both sides do not make concessions<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

The White House sees the cession of some of the occupied Ukrainian territories to the invader<\/strong> as inevitable, but it is not yet clear which ones. “The Russians cannot conquer all of Ukraine, and it will be very difficult for Ukraine, in a reasonable period, to force the Russians back to where they were in 2014,” the U.S. diplomatic chief noted. Currently, Moscow controls roughly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory<\/strong> (including the Crimean peninsula, unilaterally annexed 11 years ago).<\/p>\n

\"Marco<\/a>
Washington’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, upon his arrival in Jeddah on March 10, 2025 (photo via Imagoeconomica)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The hope, shared by both Kyiv and Washington, is to conclude once and for all the signing of the pact on critical raw materials\u00a0<\/strong>abandoned\u00a0after the catastrophic three-way talks in the Oval Office. The U.S. administration sees it as reimbursement for aid sent to the former Soviet republic in three years of war<\/strong>, while for Zelensky it is the last chance\u00a0to keep Uncle Sam on his side<\/strong>. Trump had earlier described the agreement as “the best security guarantee” for Kyiv, even though it does not provide for any U.S. troop deployment on Ukrainian soil.<\/p>\n

Today’s is the second high-level diplomatic meeting<\/strong>\u00a0in Saudi Arabia to reach a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine. The previous had been convened<\/a>\u00a0in Riyadh last Feb. 18, and had been the first face-to-face between U.S. and Russian officials since 2022<\/strong>, who in the Saudi capital agreed to restore diplomatic relations frozen during the presidency of Joe Biden<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attempts at dialogue between Kyiv and Washington as they are trying to mend fences after last month’s diplomatic rift, following which an agreement on Ukrainian minerals was abandoned and the White House suspended military aid to the attacked country<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":420994,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[26042,26411,25802,26458,30324,30589],"class_list":["post-421002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-marco-rubio-en","tag-accordo-terre-rare-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421002"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421044,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421002\/revisions\/421044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}