Russia, Ukraine agree to halt ‘use of force’ in Black Sea in U.S.-mediated deal

Open this photo in gallery:

The United States said Tuesday that Russia and Ukraine had separately agreed to halt the “use of force” in the Black Sea, a confidence-building measure that falls far short of the full ceasefire the U.S. had been pushing the two sides to accept.

The Kremlin said in a statement that the new deal would come into force only once sanctions were lifted against its state-owned agricultural bank, Rosselkhozbank, and the bank was reconnected to international payment systems such as SWIFT.

If U.S. sanctions were lifted against Rosselkhozbank, it would be the first major Russian institution to escape the punitive measures imposed against Moscow since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he considered Tuesday’s agreements to have immediate effect.

U.S. President Donald Trump came to office saying he could end the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours.” However, even a temporary halt in the fighting – which has killed tens of thousands of people – has proved elusive.

Mr. Zelensky has resisted intense U.S. pressure to concede land to Russia, and abandon Ukraine’s ambition of joining NATO, in exchange for peace. Meanwhile Russia, which initially sought to conquer all of Ukraine, has little reason to compromise at a time its troops are gaining ground along the 1,000-kilometre front line, while Ukraine runs low on soldiers and ammunition.

The limited deal was announced Tuesday by the White House in separate statements released at the end of two days of U.S.-mediated shuttle diplomacy in Saudi Arabia. Both statements said there was an agreement “to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea.”

The U.S.-Russia agreement said the U.S. had agreed to help Russia restore its access to world markets for agriculture and fertilizer, while the U.S.-Ukraine agreement said the U.S. would continue to press for the exchange of prisoners of war and the return of Ukrainian children forcibly taken to Russia.

Russia and Ukraine also restated their commitment to a 30-day halt in attacks on energy infrastructure, a deal that was previously announced but which has yet to be followed by any perceptible changes in the fighting. The White House statements said Moscow and Kyiv had committed to “develop measures for implementing” the energy ceasefire.

The new measures agreed to on Tuesday largely resemble the Black Sea Grain Initiative that was signed in July, 2022, less than five months after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. That deal saw Ukraine export more than 33 million tonnes of grain via an agreed demilitarized route before Russia withdrew from the pact a year later, saying its own agricultural exports were still being restricted by international sanctions.

Though Russian agricultural products were never directly targeted by sanctions, transactions were impeded by U.S., Canadian and European measures targeting Russia’s banking sector.

Mr. Zelensky said the wording around the U.S. helping Russia restore its access to agricultural markets was not something Ukraine had agreed to. “We believe that this is a weakening of position and sanctions,” he told reporters in Kyiv. He said that Saudi Arabia and Turkey, in addition to the U.S., would be responsible for monitoring and assessing compliance with the deal.

The vague language of the two White House statements left it unclear whether, for instance, Russia had promised to halt the use of ship-fired weapons in the nightly barrages of drones and missiles it launches against Ukrainian cities, or whether the two sides had agreed only to stop targeting each other’s naval vessels.

The deal could conceivably give Russia’s Black Sea Fleet more freedom of operation, as a series of successful strikes by Ukrainian sea drones and anti-ship missiles have forced Russia’s warships to stay further offshore than they did early in the war, allowing Ukraine to continue grain exports via the port of Odesa even after the collapse of the original grain deal.

Though the new agreements didn’t specifically refer to a halt in attacks on port infrastructure used to export Ukrainian grain – which were barred under the initial Black Sea Grain Initiative – Mr. Zelensky said port facilities were on a list that Ukraine provided to the U.S. for inclusion under the 30-day pause on attacking energy infrastructure.

“The American side really wanted all of this not to fail, so they did not want to go into many details. But in any case we will have to understand answers to each of the details,” Mr. Zelensky said.

A pause in the Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid would be welcome news in Ukraine, where Kyiv and other cities have experienced regular blackouts. Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries in western Russia have also become a regular feature of the war.

Mr. Zelensky acknowledged that the deal also contained no provisions for what would happen if Russia didn’t hold up its end of the bargain, but said he would ask Mr. Trump to impose new sanctions and provide Ukraine with additional weapons if Moscow violated the pact. “We have no faith in the Russians, but we will be constructive,” Mr. Zelensky said.

Similarly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said there was little trust between Moscow and Kyiv, and that the new Black Sea agreement could only work if the U.S. gave Mr. Zelensky “a direct order” to honour the deal.