RIYADH: US and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia to discuss a partial ceasefire in Ukraine on Monday as dozens of people were wounded in a missile strike on a Ukrainian city. With Ukrainian negotiators waiting nearby, a day after they sat down with the US team, the Americans and Russians met in Riyadh with a Black Sea ceasefire top of the agenda. President Donald Trump is pushing for a rapid end to the three-year war and hopes the latest round of talks will pave the way for a breakthrough.
While the talks took place at a luxury hotel in the Saudi capital, 65 people were wounded in a missile attack on Sumy in northeastern Ukraine, officials said. The attack on a “densely populated residential area” damaged apartments and an educational facility, the regional prosecutor’s office said. The city’s acting mayor earlier said a hospital had been affected.
The Ukrainian negotiating team was expecting a second meeting with the US delegation on Monday, a source in Kyiv told AFP, a sign that progress may have been made. ‘Trump’s proposal and Putin agreed’ This month in Jeddah - days after President Volodymyr Zelensky’s White House dressing-down by Trump - Ukraine agreed to a US-proposed, 30-day ceasefire that was then rejected by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Officials are now studying a possible resumption of the Black Sea Initiative, a year-long agreement that allowed millions of tonnes of grain and other food exports to be shipped from Ukraine’s ports.
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