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American and Ukrainian negotiators were set to meet in Saudi Arabia on Sunday for a second round of negotiations aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, as Kyiv’s trust in Washington was again tested by the Trump administration.
Steve Witkoff, the US president’s special envoy for Russia, on Friday echoed longtime Kremlin talking points and falsehoods about Ukraine and said he “liked” Russian President Vladimir Putin and deemed him “super smart” after meeting him in Moscow this month.
“I don’t regard Putin as a bad guy,” Witkoff said on a podcast with right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson aired on Friday night. Witkoff falsely described Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine as wanting to join Russia and dismissed European postwar security efforts as “a posture and a pose”.
Witkoff said Washington’s goal in peace talks was to secure a “30-day ceasefire, during which time we discuss a permanent ceasefire”. But Kyiv has already accused Moscow of violating its pledge to pause attacks on energy infrastructure.
The Kremlin did not immediately comment on the Witkoff interview, but pro-government voices have welcomed it.
Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Russian propaganda broadcaster RT, wrote on Telegram that “the key message from Trump’s Ukraine policy” was recognising Russia’s territorial claims.
Sunday’s discussions with Ukrainian officials, followed by US-Russia talks on Monday, are being described as “technical” rather than high-level, according to a Washington official.
Ukrainian officials said they will focus on the modalities of a possible ceasefire — including how it might be monitored and enforced — as well as related energy and maritime issues.
Ukraine’s defence minister Rustem Umerov will lead his country’s delegation, which includes Pavlo Palisa, a presidential military adviser, foreign policy adviser Ihor Zhovkva, and several military officers, according to the presidential office.
The US delegation will be led by Andrew Peek, from the National Security Council, and Michael Anton, head of policy planning at the State Department, the US official said.
Sunday’s talks follow a meeting in Jeddah on March 11, after which Ukraine said it was ready to accept a US proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire.
In response, Washington said it would resume deliveries of weapons and ammunition to Kyiv and end its suspension of intelligence-sharing that had been severed after Trump’s dust up with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House last month — a step Ukrainian officials viewed as vital to sustaining operations beyond the front line.
The US proposal was announced in a joint statement following several hours of discussions. But that plan was not backed by Putin, who told Trump in a phone call on Tuesday that he was only prepared to refrain from striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure for 30 days.
Ukrainian officials say that Russia has not lived up to the promise, as its aerial attacks have continued daily since the leaders’ call. The attacks — which Zelenskyy said on Sunday morning included 1,100 drones, 1,580 guided aerial bombs and 15 various missiles — have targeted civilian infrastructure in cities across Ukraine.
Swarms of Russian drones attacked the Ukrainian capital on Saturday night, killing at least three people and sparking fires in several apartment blocks.
Odesa on Friday was also targeted by one of the largest Russian drone attacks of the war, with regional officials saying the strikes had led to emergency power cuts.
Czech President Petr Pavel, who had been visiting Odesa and boarded a train to Kyiv just 20 minutes before the drone attack, said the strikes underscored the challenge of negotiating with Russia.
“One has to be truly cynical when declaring the will to have peace negotiations or negotiations on a ceasefire, and at the same time to launch a massive attack on civilian infrastructure,” he told reporters. “It is extremely difficult to deal with such a party.”
Russia’s foreign ministry accused Ukraine of attempting to disrupt peace negotiations by striking an oil depot in the Krasnodar region and a gas metering station in Sudzha, a town in Russia’s Kursk region recently retaken by Russian forces. Kyiv blamed Moscow for the Sudzha attack.
“These actions show a complete unwillingness to reach any agreement and no desire for peace,” Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Saturday.
Moscow also portrays the Monday talks with the US as a low-level technical meeting to discuss safe passage for ships in the Black Sea.
Its delegation will be comprised of Grigory Karasin, a career diplomat and chair of the international affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, and Sergei Beseda, an adviser to the head of the FSB spy agency.
