RIYADH: Washington and Kyiv held brief talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday (Mar 25), a day after hours of US-Russia negotiations on halting the fighting in Ukraine ended without any breakthroughs announced.
US President Donald Trump is pushing for a rapid end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine launched more than three years ago, and hopes the latest round of talks in the Saudi capital will pave the way for a ceasefire.
Kyiv had earlier this month agreed to a US-proposed unconditional ceasefire but Moscow had turned it down, with Ukraine and its European allies accusing it of not wanting peace.
“The talks are over. All details will be announced later,” a Ukrainian source told a small group of media, including AFP, not long after saying the meeting had begun.
The negotiations between Ukrainian and American officials come after hours of Russian-US meetings that yielded no announcement on any truce.
In Moscow, the Kremlin said the “content” of its talks with the US a day earlier will not be made public, saying it was still “analysing” the results of negotiations with the Americans.
“They are being analysed,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“The content of these talks will definitely not be publicised,” he added.
The Kremlin said contacts with Washington would continue but there was no “specific” date for another meeting.
Late on Tuesday, Russian news agencies had reported that Russia and the US plan to release a joint statement on the results of the talks.
There was no sign from Moscow that it would agree to any truce.
