Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that talks between Ukraine and US in Saudi Arabia, which wrapped up on Sunday night, were “productive and focused,” but President Volodymyr Zelensky stressed that Moscow is the one who needs to bring an end to the war.
The discussions between Umerov’s team and that of US envoy Steve Witkoff focused largely on energy, the defense minister said. The future of the Russian-occupied nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest, has been prominently featured in US President Donald Trump’s remarks about the negotiations to bring Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine to an end.
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“The discussion was productive and focused. We addressed key points including energy,” Umerov wrote on social media.
The minister had already noted before the talks that proposals to protect energy facilities and critical infrastructure would be on the agenda.
For his part, Witkoff promoted Trump’s belief that only he can solve this problem, and the president said on Sunday he is promising a ceasefire by Easter. (This year, in a rare instance, Catholic and Protestant Easter, observed mostly in the West, and Orthodox Easter, observed by both Russians and Ukrainians, falls on the same day: April 20.)
“I feel that [Russian President Vladimir Putin] wants peace,” Witkoff told Fox News on Sunday. He promoted a hopeful vision that any agreement decided upon there at all would lead to ceasefire.
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“I think you’re going to see in Saudi Arabia on Monday some real progress, particularly as it affects a Black Sea ceasefire on ships between both countries. And from that you’ll naturally gravitate to a full-on shooting ceasefire,” Witkoff said.
Zelensky struck a less optimistic chord in his evening address on Sunday.
While he praised the talks as “quite useful” and conducted in a “constructive manner,” he stressed that Moscow is the one continuing to shell Ukrainian communities and balking at cease-fire proposals.
“Russia is the only one who is dragging this war out,” Zelensky said. “No matter what we talk about with our partners, we need to push Putin to give a real order to stop the strikes.
“The one who brought this war must take it away,” he said.
His comments come as Moscow continues to launch relentless strikes on residential areas around Ukraine, killing civilians, including children, and destroying well more than a hundred private homes.
Discussions between the United States and Russia are scheduled for Monday, and the Kremlin is already tempering Witkoff’s sunny view with a dose of skepticism.
“We are only at the beginning of this path,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state TV. Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin has wholly disregarded his voiced agreement to supporting a ceasefire in theory, and Peskov said on Sunday there were many outstanding questions over how a potential ceasefire might be implemented.
The spokesman also said the “main” focus in its talks with Witkoff’s team would be a possible resumption of a 2022 Black Sea grain deal that ensured safe navigation for Ukrainian farm exports via the Black Sea.
“On Monday, we mainly intend to discuss President Putin’s agreement to resume the so-called Black Sea initiative, and our negotiators will be ready to discuss the nuances around this problem,” Peskov said.
He added that the “potential for mutually beneficial cooperation in a wide variety of spheres between our countries cannot be overstated.”
“We may disagree on some things but that does not mean we should deprive ourselves of mutual benefit,” he said.