As President Donald Trump pushes for a speedy end to Russia's war in Ukraine, Russia and Ukraine struck agreements with the United States on Tuesday to pause fighting on the Black Sea, which borders both countries and contains key shipping routes.
Freezing fighting in the sea has been a goal of the international community from the beginning, but Russia pulled out of a similar deal struck before and it remains unclear whether this one will last.
After days of U.S.-led separate negotiations in Saudi Arabia – with Russia on Monday, and with Ukraine on Sunday – the warring countries agreed to the maritime ceasefire on Tuesday, which will allow commercial ships from both nations to pass.
Russia also said it will hold to a promise President Vladimir Putin made to Trump not to attack Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
In exchange, the U.S. agreed to help Russia get more access to agricultural and fertilizer exports, which will require the U.S. to give Russia back its access to SWIFT, the global financial messaging system, and lift sanctions on one Russian bank. After Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration and Ukraine's European allies cut Russia's major banks off from SWIFT, which facilitates global financial transactions.
That concession was the latest indication of Trump's reversal of the U.S. position towards Russia and Ukraine. In an interview with far-right talk show host Tucker Carlson on Friday, Trump's lead Ukraine negotiator Steve Witkoff praised Putin and regurgitated talking points the Kremlin uses to legitimize its invasion.
Former President Joe Biden stood squarely behind Ukraine and in opposition to Russian aggression.
Past Black Sea ceasefire fell apart after a year
Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. That April and May, Russia focused its offensive on Ukraine's southern coastline on the Black Sea, seizing several major port cities and imposing a blockade on food exports.
The blockade sparked fears that choking off the supply of Ukrainian grain could worsen food shortages and send prices skyrocketing. Ukraine is a major grain exporter – 15 countries in Africa receive more than half their grain imports from Ukraine and Russia, and Ukraine' was the largest supplier to the World Food Programme, which provides food supplies to vulnerable countries, before the war.
In July 2022, under international pressure, Russia agreed to allow Ukrainian grain ships to leave the Black Sea. But after a year, it unilaterally ended that agreement, claiming Ukraine was using it to bolster its military posture and pointing to U.S. sanctions that made it harder for Russia to sell its own goods.
Russia energy ceasefire not 'big, unanimous act'
Trump promised on the campaign trail to get the war "settled." So far, he has zeroed in on extracting smaller concessions from both sides. Trump officials also met with Ukraine in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, a meeting Rustem Umerov, Ukraine's minister of defense, called "productive and focused."
The pause on energy strikes, "has been presented as a big, unanimous act by Putin," said Rajan Menon, professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York. But if agreed to by both sides, it could work out more in Putin's favor, he said.
In the past year, Ukraine has used its own drones and, more recently, cruise missiles to hit Russian energy production centers like "oil refineries, compression plants, natural gas storage plants," Menon said. Last week, Russia also accused Ukraine of blowing up a Russian gas pumping station in the Kursk region, calling it an "act of terrorism."
As a result, an agreement from both sides to halt those strikes could hobble Ukraine more than Russia in it standing in the conflict, according to Menon.
Russia is the world's second-largest producer of natural gas, according to the International Energy Agency. In 2022, it produced more than 27 times more natural gas than Ukraine.
Menon said Ukraine is far more susceptible to bending towards a deal than Russia. Last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy kept the door open to a deal, saying he was he was "ready to work" with Trump, after Trump publicly dressed him down in an Oval Office meeting. After the meeting, Trump briefly cut off U.S. aid to Ukraine and stopped sharing its intelligence.
Trump's affinity for Russia and Putin has stirred concern in Washington since his first campaign for president. Ahead of the 2016 election, Trump's campaign expressed support for Putin's invasion two years earlier of the Ukrainian region Crimea. A Senate Intelligence Committee report found that Russia attempted to meddle in that election to boost Trump – and it did so again in 2020 and 2024, according to intelligence officials. And last month, Trump branded Zelenskyy a "dictator" while declining to say the same of Putin, who is rated as an authoritarian ruler by numerous pro-democracy groups.
"The U.S. doesn't have much leverage on Russia," Menon said. "But Ukraine is so dependent on the U.S. that Trump does have a lot of leverage, and Putin knows this very well."
This story originally appeared on USA Today.
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