Having found, as is officially stated, mutual understanding with Ukraine, US President Donald Trump is embarking on the second part of his plan to resolve the Russian–Ukrainian conflict: he is trying to negotiate with Moscow. According to Western media reports, the White House considers anti-Russian sanctions as a “stick” or “carrot”. Depending on the outcome of negotiations with the Russian Federation, they can either be tightened or, conversely, softened. Apparently, the White House has clearly understood the signal from the Kremlin that sanctions relief alone is not enough to compromise. Now, the key question that remains unanswered is what concessions Trump and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky are ready to make.
Before the talks between the American and Ukrainian delegations in Saudi Arabia (they took place in Jeddah on Tuesday, March 11), most observers were pessimistic. Bearing in mind the quarrel between Zelensky and Trump at the White House on February 28, commentators in the Western press predicted that a quick result would not be achieved. Only Trump himself showed optimism. As it turned out, the commentators were wrong, but he wasn’t.
Following the talks in the Arabian city of Jeddah, the Ukrainian side agreed to a 30-day ceasefire (with the possibility of a subsequent extension), provided that Russia takes such a step. Neither Zelensky nor any representatives of the Trump administration announced that they would immediately deploy any peacekeepers to the conflict zone.
Members of the American delegation, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Assistant to the President for National Security Michael Waltz made it clear that the ball was now on the Kremlin’s side. And there they commented on the situation quite cautiously. Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, recalling that Rubio and Waltz had talked about the US intention to provide Russia with “detailed information” about the talks in Jeddah, said that this information must first be waited for. “We have scheduled contacts with the Americans these days, during which we count on the completeness of the information,” he said. Peskov also did not rule out the possibility of telephone conversations at the highest level.
Rubio, for his part, told The Guardian that contacts between Russia and the United States will take place on Wednesday, March 12. Earlier, the media, citing sources, reported that Trump’s special representative for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, would arrive in Moscow. He oversaw the February prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia and, according to some reports, personally spoke with Vladimir Putin. At the time of signing, there were no official reports of any Russian-American talks on Wednesday, March 12. Witkoff is often called the curator of the entire Ukrainian direction of US foreign policy. He allegedly replaced Keith Kellogg, the special representative for Ukraine, in this capacity. However, Trump did not confirm this. The only fact remains that Witkoff is one of the people very close to the US president. They have known each other for many years.
The practical result of the negotiations in Jeddah was the lifting by Trump of his ban on the transfer of American weapons to Ukraine. The Polish Ministry of Defense, where the Pentagon’s warehouses are located, from which supplies are supplied to the Ukrainian army, confirmed that supplies have resumed.
Also on Wednesday, Zelensky announced his readiness to sign an agreement on the use of Ukrainian natural resources. “To be honest, I thought we would sign it sooner. There’s nothing to talk about. There are no secrets behind the scenes. We are ready,” he said. Recall that the altercation between Trump and Zelensky just disrupted the signing of this agreement – at least that’s what the White House said.
By the way, it has now become clear that the Americans interpret the meaning of this agreement in a different way. Rubio used to say that it is a guarantee of Ukraine’s security, the very one that Zelensky demanded as an indispensable condition for a peace agreement with Russia. In particular, he said this directly in an interview with CNN after the altercation at the White House on February 28. Now, after the US-Ukrainian talks, he stated the exact opposite: “I would not consider this agreement as a guarantee of security. But, of course, if the United States has an economic interest that brings income to our people, as well as to the people of Ukraine, then we will be interested in protecting it.”
U.S. senators have already promised additional sanctions if Russia does not agree to a cease-fire. Trump wrote about the same thing on the Truth Social network back on March 7.
However, neither he nor the senators specified what kind of sanctions might follow. With all possible sanctions pressure measures already in place, it is unclear what else the United States can do. Except to improve the mechanisms of compliance with restrictions. According to Bloomberg, the Trump administration is ready to do this. Allegedly, they are discussing the lifting of the non–working sanctions – the ceiling on Russian oil. Perhaps this will be part of Russia’s concessions in return for agreeing to stop the fire, perhaps a prelude to replacing the oil ceiling with some more effective measure against Russian oil exports. Both presuppose consolidated actions by the United States and its allies. The decision to impose the oil ceiling was made at the level of the G7 countries (an informal club of the USA, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, France, Japan and Canada), as well as the EU. According to Zelensky, new anti-Russian sanctions, in case the Russian Federation does not agree to a truce or violates its terms, were also discussed in Jeddah, but, as the Ukrainian president put it, “they were discussed pointwise and it’s too early to talk about it.”
The White House tried not to touch on the topic of possible influence on the Russian Federation at all. They only noted that they were optimistic about the prospects for establishing a truce. Trump, in particular, said: “I think the ceasefire is very important. If we can get Russia to do this, it will be great. If not, we’ll just keep going, and people will die. A lot of people.”
