The United States has agreed to help Russia boost its agricultural and fertiliser exports to the world market in exchange for a maritime security deal in the Black Sea.
The White House and the Kremlin announced the deal on Tuesday after teams from the US and Russia met in Saudi Arabia to carve out a pathway towards peace in Ukraine.
These negotiations came amid the Trump administration’s push to end the war in Ukraine that has been dragging on since 2022. President Donald Trump shifted US policy on Ukraine by proactively engaging with Moscow and accepting some of its biggest demands, including ruling out Ukraine’s NATO membership.
Here is what the latest deal is about:
What is the Black Sea deal about?
A statement released by the White House on Tuesday said Ukraine and Russia had agreed to stop the use of force and the military use of commercial vessels in the Black Sea.
The Kremlin issued a statement echoing this, adding that the US and Russia would organise “appropriate control measures through inspection of such vessels”, without specifying what these measures would be.
In return, 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”, the White House statement said.
But the Kremlin statement was more specific in terms of Russia’s demands: It added that the pause on fighting in the Black Sea would come into force only after sanctions are lifted from the Russian agricultural bank, Rosselkhozbank, alongside other financial organisations which work with international food trade, including that of fish products and fertilisers. The Kremlin statement added that these organisations must be connected to the SWIFT system and any sanctions and restrictions on food, fertiliser, ships and agricultural machinery must be lifted.
SWIFT, which stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is an international financial artery which allows for better flow of funds transfer across borders. A month after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, seven Russian banks were removed from SWIFT. Rosselkhozbank was removed a few months later, in June 2022.
Since the beginning of the war, the US and its allies have placed at least 21,692 sanctions on Russian individuals, media organisations, or institutions in the military, energy sector, aviation, shipbuilding and telecommunications sectors.
The statements said the US and Russia “welcome the good offices of third countries with a view toward supporting the implementation of the energy and maritime agreements”. While the statements did not mention any specific countries, Turkiye has previously mediated a Black Sea grain deal, and India has helped convince Russia to stick with it.
What else did the White House and Kremlin say?
Both the White House and Kremlin statements said Washington and Moscow would “develop measures” to implement an earlier agreement between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin over a phone call on March 18 to halt attacks on Russian and Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
This agreement was accepted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. But as in the past, details remain vague. The latest US and Russian statements do not specify the “measures” that would lead to a halt in attacks on energy infrastructure. Since this agreement, Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of attacking energy infrastructure.
The Kremlin statement added that there is a possibility of “extension and withdrawal from the [ban on energy strikes] agreement in the event of non-compliance by one of the parties”.
What were the talks on the Ukraine war in Saudi Arabia?
From March 23 to 25, a delegation from the US met separately with Russian and Ukrainian teams in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh.
The Russian delegation was led by diplomat Grigory Karasin, who has previously been deputy foreign minister and ambassador to the United Kingdom. Alongside Karasin, the Russian team also included Sergei Beseda, a veteran of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). The Ukrainian delegation was led by Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov and Pavlo Palisa, a top military adviser to Zelenskyy.
The Reuters news agency reported that the US team included White House National Security Council’s senior director, Andrew Peek, and Director of Policy Planning Staff Michael Anton, citing a source briefed on planning for the talks in Riyadh.
How did we get here?
This deal is a resumption of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, struck in 2022 with the mediation of the United Nations and Turkiye.
The initiative entailed a three-year memorandum of agreement allowing the safe export of 33 million metric tonnes of Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea despite the war. In return, UN officials agreed to facilitate Russian food and fertiliser exports to foreign markets.
In 2023, Moscow pulled out of this deal, citing difficulties and hurdles in exporting its own food and fertilisers. While Russian food and fertiliser companies are not the target of Western sanctions, Moscow said restrictions on logistics, payments and insurance fees had hindered shipping.
In advance of the talks in Riyadh, Waltz told CBS News on March 23 that the resumption of the grain deal would be the main focus of the talks. “We are now going to talk about a Black Sea maritime ceasefire so that both sides can move grain, fuel, and start conducting trade again in the Black Sea,” he said.
How did Zelenskyy respond?
In his nightly video address posted to his X account on Tuesday, Zelenskyy said, “Ukraine is ready to work as swiftly as possible and with absolute transparency to end the war.”
However, he expressed distrust in Moscow, saying: “There is something that the Kremlin is lying about again: that allegedly the silence in the Black Sea depends on the issue of sanctions, and that allegedly the start date for the silence in the energy sector is March 18.”
“If there is renewed military activity in the Black Sea, if Russian manipulations and threats continue — then new measures will need to be taken, specifically against Moscow,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Umerov said further discussions were needed to iron out the details of the Black Sea deal.
“The Ukrainian side emphasizes that all movement by Russia of its military vessels outside of Eastern part of the Black Sea will constitute violation of the spirit of this agreement, will be regarded as violation of the commitment to ensure safe navigation of the Black Sea and threat to the national security of Ukraine,” Umerov wrote in an X post on Tuesday. He added that in this scenario, Ukraine “will have full right to exercise right to self-defense”.
“For the effective implementation of the arrangements, it is important to hold additional technical consultations as soon as possible to agree on all the details and technical aspects of the implementation, monitoring and control of the arrangements,” Umerov wrote.
Could the deal help restore peace over the Black Sea?
John E Herbst, a senior director at the Washington, DC-based think tank Atlantic Council, called the deal a “useful step, but not a major one” in an analysis published on its website. This is because the Black Sea has in any case not seen major military activity after Ukrainian naval drones chased the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of Crimea, he added.
On the other hand, Matthew Kroenig from the Atlantic Council wrote that the announcement was “a step toward circumscribing the conflict on the road to eventual peace”.
Daniel Fried, the Weiser Family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, had a different view, however.
“The United States risks being sucked down a rabbit hole of concessions, easing pressure on Russia while Russian forces continue to attack Ukrainian cities and civilians,” Fried wrote on the Atlantic Council website. “Today’s deal is no peace through strength.”
What’s next?
Future talks between the US and Russia would see the involvement of the UN and other countries, Russian news agency TASS reported, citing Karasin.
“Everything was discussed – there was an intense, challenging dialogue, but it was very useful for us and for the Americans,” Karasin said.
“We will continue to do this, involving the international community, first of all, the United Nations and individual countries,” said Karasin, without specifying which individual countries he was talking about.
“In general, the impression was of a constructive dialogue, which is needed and necessary. The Americans are also interested in this.”
How is Europe viewing the Riyadh talks?
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are expected to hold talks on Thursday to discuss a “coalition of the willing” that the British leader had announced on March 2.
The idea is that a coalition of Ukraine’s willing European allies would devise terms for peace and present them to the US, and potentially play a prominent role in offering security guarantees to Ukraine under any peace agreement with Russia.
But Europe has been kept out of the recent discussions in Saudi Arabia, and the coalition was not mentioned in the White House and Kremlin’s statements.
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who has been involved in the Russia-Ukraine negotiations, has described Starmer’s idea as “a combination of posture and pose” in an interview with conservative journalist Tucker Carlson which streamed online on March 22.
