US Says Russia and Ukraine Agree to Ceasefire in the Black Sea

By Bloomberg News

Mar 25, 2025 (Bloomberg) –The US said Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a ceasefire in the Black Sea and to work out mechanisms for implementing their ban on strikes against energy infrastructure.

In separate statements, the White House said Tuesday that three days of technical-level talks in Saudi Arabia with teams from Russia and Ukraine had yielded agreements “to ensure safe navigation” in the Black Sea. The sides had also agreed to prevent the use of commercial shipping for military purposes, it said.

The US “will 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,” according to the statement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his forces would observe the partial ceasefire immediately. Another round of talks between the US and Ukraine may take place soon, he said.

The Kremlin confirmed the agreement on safe navigation in the Black Sea in a statement late Tuesday, but said it was dependent on sanctions relief for banks and companies involved in agricultural exports. 

The truce would come into force once sanctions were lifted on the Russian Agricultural Bank, Rosselkhozbank JSC, and other financial institutions involved in trade in food products and fertilizers, including by connecting them to the SWIFT international payments system, it said.

Russia ranks as the world’s biggest wheat exporter, accounting for more than a fifth of global trade. Ukraine has also remained a significant crop exporter and ships substantial volumes via the Black Sea, despite Russia’s withdrawal from a United Nations-backed grain deal covering the route in 2023.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said in a Facebook post after the agreement that any movement of Russian military vessels outside of the eastern part of the Black Sea would be regarded as a violation of the commitment to ensure safe navigation and a threat to Ukraine’s national security.

Both Ukraine and Russia also agreed to work with the US on measures to put the truce on attacks against energy infrastructure into effect, the White House said. The ban takes effect from March 18 for 30 days, according to the Kremlin statement.

While the talks resulted in a second area of agreement to cease hostilities, they also underlined the difficulty of reaching a full ceasefire in the war that Russia began with its full-scale invasion in February 2022. That may reinforce a sense that Russia is playing for time to try to extract more concessions from the White House as President Donald Trump seeks to fulfill his election campaign pledge to achieve a quick end to the conflict.

Trump administration officials are aiming to reach a full ceasefire as soon as April 20, Bloomberg reported previously, but that timeline has been seen by Ukrainian and European officials as overly ambitious.

Read more: US Hopes for Ukraine Peace Deal as Putin Seems in No Hurry (2)

The statements made no mention of possible future talks or a summit meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia and Ukraine may see a greater incentive to prolong the three-year conflict instead of rushing into a full settlement, an assessment by the US intelligence community released on Tuesday showed.

Productive and Focused

The statements came after the Kremlin earlier Tuesday said that it wouldn’t disclose details of the 12 hours of negotiations between Russian and US officials in the Saudi capital Riyadh. US and Ukrainian officials also held a second round of talks on Tuesday, following discussions on Sunday that Umerov had called “productive and focused.” 

The meetings in Riyadh followed Trump’s separate phone calls last week with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. He secured their agreement to the 30-day truce covering energy infrastructure though details of how it would be enforced and monitored were unclear.

The White House statement 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.”

The Russia-US dialog was difficult but constructive and covered many issues, Grigory Karasin, a former deputy foreign minister who jointly led the Kremlin’s negotiating team, said Tuesday, according to Tass. Talks will continue and involve the United Nations as well as other countries, he said.

Turkey and the United Nations mediated talks on a grain-export deal from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports in 2022-2023 that collapsed when Russia withdrew.

Ukraine unconditionally supports the idea of a full ceasefire with Russia that goes beyond the energy truce, the nation’s envoy to the US said. 

“We embrace it wholeheartedly,” Ambassador Oksana Markarova said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Monday. “We need Russia to agree to that,” she said, adding “it takes two to dance.”

© 2025 Bloomberg L.P.

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