(March 25): Ukraine unconditionally supports the idea of a full ceasefire with Russia that goes beyond the one-month energy infrastructure truce currently under discussion, the nation’s envoy to the US said. 

“We embrace it wholeheartedly,” Ambassador Oksana Markarova said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Monday. “We need Russia to agree to that,” she said, adding “it takes two to dance”.

The Ukrainian diplomat spoke after US and Russian officials concluded 12 hours of talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday as part of President Donald Trump’s campaign for a ceasefire in the war.

A day earlier, US officials had met with their Ukrainian counterparts for talks that Ukraine’s defense minister called “productive and focused,” and “addressed key points including energy”.

The talks follow Trump’s separate telephone calls last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The countries have discussed a tentative agreement not to target energy infrastructure, but it’s unclear when that could take effect and whether it would help broader peace negotiations. 

Regarding the natural resources deal that Ukraine and the US have been negotiating under the Trump administration, Markarova said that teams from both nations are focused on completing the work quickly.

Trump has sought to pressure Zelenskiy into allowing the US benefit from Ukraine’s untapped resources. The agreement was initially supposed to be finalised when Zelenskiy visited the White House last month, but was thrown into doubt after an explosive Oval Office meeting between the two leaders.

Officials in Kyiv have stressed that they remain ready to finalise the pact, and the hold-up appears to be on the US side. Despite Trump’s comments that the deal could be completed soon, his administration has shifted its attention toward brokering a ceasefire over the targeting of energy assets, and potentially bringing Ukraine’s nuclear power plants under American ownership.

The White House has suggested in recent days that bringing the plants under American control would give them the best protection.

“There are many industries where we can cooperate,” Markarova said, listing energy as a national strength, as well as agricultural production, infrastructure and defense technology.

“We really would like to cooperate more with the US, of course, with European partners and others,” Markarova said. “There is a lot we can do with American companies.”

Yet the Russian attacks continue. On Monday, even as the talks in Riyadh were taking place, a Russian missile struck a densely populated area in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy injuring 65 people, including 14 children, the regional Prosecutor General’s office said on Facebook. 

Zelenskiy said on Sunday that “massive Russian drone attacks” were continuing, and he called on US and European allies to put “more pressure on Russia to stop this terror”.

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