Talks, tensions, and no results: What happened in Riyadh’s secretive negotiations

From March 23 to 25, several rounds of indirect talks took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, involving delegations from Ukraine and the United States, as well as the U.S. and Russia.

The parties described these talks as “technical,” intended to finalize details of a proposed 30-day ceasefire. Earlier, both Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump claimed they had agreed to halt strikes on energy infrastructure, but the White House said the specifics of this agreement needed to be “immediately” worked out in Saudi Arabia.

Western media had anticipated a “joint statement” from the U.S. and Russia following their 12-hour talks, but no such announcement was made. Instead, the U.S. delegation met with Ukraine’s representatives twice. So far, Ukraine has only issued a brief official statement after the first of these meetings.

Behind closed doors: How the Riyadh talks played out

The U.S. organized these negotiations using a “shuttle diplomacy” model, acting as a mediator between parties that refused to engage in direct dialogue. Consequently, there were no direct Ukraine-Russia negotiations or three-way talks involving Ukraine, the U.S., and Russia in Riyadh.

Instead, three separate rounds of talks took place:

• On March 23, Ukrainian and U.S. delegations met for five hours with one break.
• On March 24, U.S. and Russian delegations held 12 hours of talks with several breaks; journalists were not allowed inside the Ritz-Carlton hotel where the meeting occurred.
• On March 25, Ukraine and the U.S. held another brief round of talks, lasting about an hour, according to Suspilne reports on the meeting’s start and end times.

The Riyadh talks were described as “technical,” so the participating countries sent delegations that were not as high-level as those present at earlier talks in Saudi Arabia.

The Ukrainian delegation included:

• Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s defense minister
• Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of the Presidential Office and former commander of the 93rd Cold Ravine Brigade
• Ihor Zhovkva, deputy head of the Presidential Office
• Mykola Kolisnyk, deputy energy minister
• Oleksandr Karasevych, state secretary of Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry

The U.S. delegation was led by:

• Andrew Peek, senior director at the U.S. National Security Council
• Michael Anton, director of U.S. policy planning

The Russian delegation included:

• Grigory Karasin, chairman of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs
• Sergei Beseda, adviser to the director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and former head of the FSB’s Fifth Service, which has been blamed for the failure of Russian intelligence operations in Ukraine. This unit was responsible for preparing analytical reports for the Kremlin ahead of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Key demands and tough stances: What Ukraine, the U.S., and Russia discussed

Over the course of three days of talks, several key details and the positions of the participating parties emerged.

The main topic discussed was a proposed moratorium on strikes in the Black Sea. According to Reuters, the U.S. delegation hoped the talks in Riyadh would conclude with an agreement between Ukraine and Russia on a ceasefire in the Black Sea to ensure free shipping.

“It was about a mutual ceasefire — we don’t attack their facilities at sea, including river facilities, and they don’t attack ours or our ports,” explained Sergii Leshchenko, an adviser to the head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, when detailing the first round of Ukraine-U.S. talks. According to him, the discussion covered not only the Odesa ports, which are actively used for shipping, but also the Mykolaiv and Kherson ports, which remain under fire.

Russia, meanwhile, framed the main topic of the talks as its alleged intention to restore the grain deal, from which Moscow withdrew in summer 2023 (Black Sea Grain Initiative).

“The agenda includes the Black Sea Initiative and all aspects related to its restoration. This was President Donald Trump’s proposal, and President Vladimir Putin agreed to it. Our delegation went to Riyadh with this mandate,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later stated that “we wanted to avoid any ambiguity this time,” alleging that during the 2022-2023 grain deal, the West “did everything possible to shield Ukraine while punishing Russia as much as possible.” According to Lavrov, this was the message Moscow sought to convey to the Americans in Saudi Arabia.

Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s defense minister, later confirmed that Ukraine and the U.S. also discussed energy issues. This likely referred to the effort to establish a ceasefire agreement covering energy and infrastructure facilities, as Trump and Putin had attempted to negotiate earlier.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy previously stated that Ukraine would provide partners with “a list of civilian facilities, energy infrastructure, and other sites” to define the details of such a moratorium on strikes.

During the negotiations in Saudi Arabia, Trump stated that the U.S. delegation was also discussing issues related to Ukrainian territories and nuclear power plants.

“We’re now talking about territory. We’re talking about demarcation lines, energy, and ownership of power plants. Some say that the power plant [presumably referring to the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant] should belong to the United States because we have the expertise,” Trump remarked.

The most controversial detail emerged from The Moscow Times, which cited sources in Russia. According to the report, the Russian delegation demanded full control over the territories of four Ukrainian oblasts — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson — within their administrative borders.

The report claimed that Russian negotiators cited the Russian constitution, which supposedly “enshrines their annexation.” One source told The Moscow Times that the Kremlin hopes for potential U.S. pressure on Kyiv to completely withdraw Ukrainian forces from those territories claimed by Russia.

“Either [U.S. President Donald] Trump will influence them [Ukraine’s Armed Forces] to leave, or we’ll be told: ‘Enter prolonged negotiations while simultaneously using military force to establish control.’ That’s the worst-case scenario for us because river crossings are always a painful operation,” the Russian official reportedly said.

As an alternative, Russia may attempt to seize part of another Ukrainian oblast, such as Dnipropetrovsk or Sumy, and then offer to exchange it for control over Kherson and Zaporizhzhya, the report claimed.

During Ukraine-U.S. consultations, the parties also discussed prisoner exchanges and the return of Ukrainian children, Leshchenko added.

Vanished statement mystery: Why the U.S.-Russia joint announcement never happened

The first official statement from the participants of the talks came from Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov. After the five-hour round of Ukraine-U.S. negotiations on March 23, Umerov stated that the “conversation was constructive and substantive — we discussed key issues, including those in the energy sector.”

Umerov also emphasized that Ukraine’s goal in the talks was to achieve a “dignified and lasting peace for our country and people, and therefore for all of Europe.” “We are working to make this a reality,” the defense minister said.

Following the 12-hour meeting between the U.S. and Russian delegations on March 24, several Western media outlets, citing sources, reported that both sides planned to issue a joint statement the following morning, March 25.

Reuters, citing White House sources, reported that Donald Trump’s administration had “highly appreciated the results of the negotiations between the U.S. and Russian delegations.” The sources told Reuters that there was apparent progress following the Riyadh meeting and that a “positive statement” was expected “soon.”

Meanwhile, CBS News sources claimed that the U.S. and Russia were set to issue a “joint statement” on March 25 at 10 a.m. Kyiv time (4 a.m. Washington time).

However, this never happened. Instead, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced that the content of the Riyadh talks would not be disclosed, claiming they were “technical consultations.”

“The results of the lengthy U.S.-Russia talks have been reported to the capitals [Moscow and Washington]. They are currently being analyzed,” Peskov said.

He also added that a trilateral meeting involving representatives of Russia, the U.S., and Ukraine was not yet planned.

Later, Russia acknowledged that no joint statement with the U.S. had been agreed upon after the 12-hour negotiations. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Vladimir Chizhov, chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, both claimed that the statement failed to materialize due to Ukraine’s stance.

“They sat there for 12 hours and seemingly agreed on a joint statement, which was ultimately not adopted because of Ukraine’s position,” Chizhov claimed.

Meanwhile, Grigory Karasin, head of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs and a member of the Russian delegation in Riyadh, described the 12-hour dialogue with the U.S. as “difficult but useful” in comments to Russian state media.

He suggested that future negotiations may continue with international involvement, including representatives from the United Nations and individual countries.

In contrast, Serhii Leshchenko, an adviser to the head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, emphasized both before the Russia-U.S. talks and after the first Ukraine-U.S. round that the ongoing discussions were “technical talks” and that “they do not necessarily need to conclude with bold headlines.”

According to Leshchenko, these discussions could eventually lead to “higher-level meetings regarding peace on Ukrainian soil.”

“There shouldn’t be much public information about the results of the talks in Saudi Arabia — these are technical negotiations,” Leshchenko said on the national television on March 24.

“Negotiations are rarely completed in a single day — they often take months, and some negotiations, like the Middle East peace process, have lasted for years. I don’t want to suggest we should expect something of that scale, but we should understand that meetings will be quite regular, and not every one will end with public statements or joint press conferences,” Leshchenko added.