The delegations of Ukraine and Russia are prepared this Sunday for their respective meetings with the US this Monday in Saudi Arabia, where the details of cessations to the partial fire are expected to delineate, in what would be steps prior to a total truce that Washington aspires to seal in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Russian attacks on kyiv continue, which have left at least three dead
The president of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, has denounced this Sunday that at least three people have died, including a five -year -old girl, and another ten have been injured in the air attacks made by Russian unmanned planes in the capital of the country, kyiv, this last night.
Zelenski has denounced that Russia has launched almost 150 attack drones during these last hours, an size that is already a “daily reality.” “Only this week, Russia has used more than 1,580 guided air pumps, almost 1,100 attack drones and 15 missiles of various types,” said Zelenski, who has highlighted the foreign manufacture of these projectiles, so “the sanctions against Russian terrorists must be more effective, starting with the elimination of any legal resolution that allows them to elude these penalty.”
These attacks occur in the midst of difficult approaches between Russia and Ukraine for a distant peace agreement. On the eve, the authorities of Ukraine stressed that during the Round of contacts to several bands on Monday in Saudi Arabia, in which the United States and Russia will also participate, Ukrainian representatives will not meet at any time with the Russian negotiating team, highlighting at this point the intermediary role of US envoys.
Zelenski met on Saturday with the commander in chief of the Armed Forces, Oleksandr Sirski; the Minister of Defense, Rustem Umrov; The Chief of the General General State, Andrí Jnatov, and the boss and vice chief of Cabinet, Andrí Yermak and Pavló Palisa, to prepare the meeting.
In principle, Umrov will lead the Ukrainian delegation, which will also be formed by Palisa and a technical profile team, especially energy experts and port infrastructure. The Ukrainian delegation will now fly to Saudi Arabia, according to the eve Zelenski, in order to hold preliminary meetings with the US delegation.
This will be composed of the special envoy of the US for Ukraine, General Keith Kellogg and his assistants, by Michael Anton, Director of Policy Planning of the State Department, in addition to representatives of the National Security Minister Mike Waltz, according to The New Yor Times.
On Monday, the head of the International Affairs Committee of the Russian Senate, Grigori Karasin, and the advisor of the Federal Security Service (FSB, former KGB), Serguéi Beseda, two experienced negotiators “very knowledgeable about international problems”, according to the Kremlin.
A constructive but combative Russia
“Our mood is constructive and combative, we hope to make progress,” Karasin told Russian television on Saturday.
Both delegations will be in different rooms, hence the US idea is to make indirect conversations, what is known as itinerant diplomacy, that is to say the US delegation will go from one room to another in Riad to try to mediate among the Ukrainian and Russian representatives, Kellogg explained on Thursday.
Both Ukrainian and Russian representatives go to Riyadh with different ideas in the mind of how a first part of the partial fire should be, since, according to US President Donald Trump, he and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, about energy and infrastructure.
However, Kremlin declared exclusively a unilateral energy truce, which kyiv supported after his call with Trump on Wednesday, but did not declare because he wanted to know more details about his implementation.
Moscow, who accused kyiv all week to violate a unilateral truce, warned on Saturday a “symmetrical” response if enemy attacks against energy facilities continue in Russian territory. “If the Russians do not hit our infrastructure we will not hit their own,” Zelenski said Wednesday in Finland.
kyiv wants to also include in a high partial fire at civil infrastructure and in fact Zelenski reiterated on Friday that the Ukrainian team will have prepared for dialogue not only a list of energy objectives that should not attack the Russians, but also one of “civil infrastructure.”
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrí Sibiga, has recalcaldo this Sunday that the Russian attacks against the civilian population, such as the night in kyiv in which at least three people have died, contradict Putin’s own statements about the possibility of taking steps towards a high fire and undermines the mediating efforts of the US.
Of a unilateral energy truce to a new maritime
The possible resumption of a truce in the Black Sea, which was in force for a few months in the first year of the war will also appear on the agenda of Riyad’s meetings.
Most likely, the Ukrainian delegation insists on the need for Russia to stop attacking port infrastructure, especially Odessa, in the south of the country. Not surprisingly, the negotiating team includes experts in this area.
The Kremlin warned this Sunday that these conversations will be “difficult”, since there are “many pitfalls”, in the words of the spokesman, Dmitri Peskov.
The truce was in force several months in 2022 by mediation of the UN and Türkiye and allowed kyiv to safely export its cereal through merchant ships that crossed the Bosphorus Strait. Russia has rejected at the moment a total truce in Ukraine, both six months and proposed Europeans and 30 days raised by the US.
However, the White House intends to reach a high fire agreement before April 20, which this year falls in Easter, but recognizes that this schedule could be altered given the broad differences between the two parties, according to people familiar with the plans cited by the agency Bloomberg.
