US says it brokered deal to end fighting in the Black Sea in talks with Ukraine and Russia

Above, the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh where talks were held with US mediation to try to reach a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 26 March 2025
Follow

US says it brokered deal to end fighting in the Black Sea in talks with Ukraine and Russia

  • The agreements, if implemented, would represent the clearest progress yet toward a wider ceasefire
  • Americans held separate talks in Saudi Arabia with Russia and Ukraine this week to discuss more limited ceasefires on energy and at sea

KYIV, Ukraine: The US said Tuesday that it had reached a tentative agreement for Ukraine and Russia to stop fighting and ensure safe navigation in the Black Sea in separate talks with both sides, but many details were unresolved, and the Kremlin made the deal conditional on lifting some Western sanctions.
The announcement was made as the US wrapped up three days of talks with Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Saudi Arabia on prospective steps toward a limited ceasefire.
While a comprehensive peace deal still looked distant, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the talks as the early “right steps” toward a peaceful settlement of the 3-year-old war.
“These are the first steps — not the very first but initial ones — with this presidential administration toward completely ending the war and the possibility of a full ceasefire, as well as steps toward a sustainable and fair peace agreement,” he said at a news conference.
US experts met separately with Ukrainian and Russian representatives in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, and the White House said in separate statements after the talks that the sides “agreed to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea.”
Details of the prospective deal were not released, but it appeared to mark another attempt to ensure safe Black Sea shipping after a 2022 agreement that was brokered by the UN and Turkiye but halted by Russia the next year.
“We are making a lot of progress,” US President Donald Trump said Tuesday at the White House. “So that’s all I can report.”
When Moscow withdrew from the shipping deal in 2023, it complained that a parallel agreement promising to remove obstacles to Russian exports of food and fertilizer had not been honored. It said restrictions on shipping and insurance hampered its agricultural trade. Kyiv accused Moscow of violating the deal by delaying the vessels’ inspections.
After Russia suspended its part of the deal, it regularly attacked Ukraine’s southern ports and grain storage sites.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in televised comments Tuesday that Moscow is now open to the revival of the Black Sea shipping deal but warned that Russian interests must be protected.
In an apparent reference to Moscow’s demands, the White House said the US “will help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions.”
Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s envoy for investment and economic cooperation, hailed the results of the talks as a “major shift toward peace, enhanced global food security and essential grain supplies for over 100 million additional people.”
Trump “is making another global breakthrough by effective dialogue and problem-solving,” he said on X.
But the Kremlin warned in a statement that the Black Sea deal could only be implemented after sanctions against the Russian Agricultural Bank and other financial organizations involved in food and fertilizer trade are lifted and their access to the SWIFT system of international payments is ensured.
The agreement is also conditional on lifting sanctions against Russian food and fertilizer exporters and ships carrying Russian food exports, and removing restrictions on exports of agricultural equipment to Russia, the Kremlin said.
The deal emphasized that inspections of commercial ships would be necessary to ensure they aren’t used for military purposes.
Zelensky bristled at Russia’s demand for lifting sanctions, saying that doing so “would weaken our position.”
Still, Trump indicated that the US was considering the Kremlin’s conditions: “We’re thinking about all of them right now.”
In an interview Tuesday with Newsmax, Trump considered the possibility that Putin could be stalling on ending the war.
“I think that Russia wants to see an end to it, but it could be they’re dragging their feet,” said Trump, comparing the negotiation to his own experience in real estate. “I’ve done it over the years. I don’t want to sign a contract. I want to sort of stay in the game, but maybe I don’t want to do it.”
A senior official in the Ukrainian government, who is directly familiar with the talks and spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, said the Kyiv delegation does not agree to lifting sanctions as a condition for a maritime ceasefire and that Russia has done nothing to have sanctions rolled back. The official also said European countries are not involved in the sanctions discussions, despite sanctions being within the European Union’s responsibility.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov warned that Kyiv would see the deployment of Russian warships in the western Black Sea as a “violation of the commitment to ensure safe navigation” there and “a threat to the national security of Ukraine.”
“In this case, Ukraine will have full right to exercise right to self-defense,” he said.

Halting strikes on energy infrastructure
The White House also said the parties agreed to develop measures for implementing an agreement reached in Trump’s calls with Zelensky and Putin to ban strikes against energy facilities in Russia and Ukraine.
The talks in Riyadh, which did not include direct Russian-Ukrainian contacts, were part of an attempt to work out details on a partial pause in the fighting in Ukraine, which began with Moscow’s invasion in 2022. It has been a struggle to reach even a limited, 30-day ceasefire, which both sides agreed to in principle last week, even while continuing to attack each other with drones and missiles.
After the Trump-Putin call last week, the White House said the partial ceasefire would include ending attacks on “energy and infrastructure,” while the Kremlin emphasized that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure.” Tuesday’s White House statement reverted to the wording used by Russia.
The Kremlin, which has accused Ukraine of breaching the agreement to stop strikes on energy infrastructure, on Tuesday published a list of energy facilities subject to a 30-day halt on strikes that began on March 18. It warned that each party was free to opt out of the deal in case of violations by the other side.
Zelensky noted that significant uncertainties remain.
“I think there will be a million questions and details,” he said, adding that the responsibility for potential violations also remains unclear.
He emphasized that Ukraine is open to a full, 30-day ceasefire that Trump has proposed, reaffirming that Kyiv is “ready to quickly move toward an unconditional ceasefire.”
Putin has made a complete ceasefire conditional on a halt of arms supplies to Kyiv and a suspension of Ukraine’s military mobilization — demands rejected by Ukraine and its Western allies.
The US noted its commitment to helping achieve the exchange of prisoners of war, the release of civilian detainees and the return of forcibly transferred Ukrainian children.
In other developments, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned in a statement that Moscow would not agree to surrender control over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, that Russia captured in the opening days of the invasion.
Trump suggested that Zelensky consider transferring ownership of Ukraine’s power plants to the US for long-term security, while the Ukrainian leader said they specifically talked about the Zaporizhzhia plant in last week’s call.
Cross-border strikes continue
The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine had “continued deliberate drone strikes against Russia’s civilian energy facilities.”
One Ukrainian drone attack on Monday knocked down a high-voltage power line linking the Rostov nuclear power plant with the city of Tikhoretsk in the southern Krasnodar region, the ministry said, adding that another drone strike had occurred on the Svatovo gas distribution station in the Russia-occupied Ukrainian region of Luhansk.
Russian state media said six people, including three Russian journalists, died Monday after a Ukrainian missile strike in the Luhansk region.
In Ukraine, the number of people injured Monday in a Russian missile strike in the city of Sumy rose to 101, including 23 children, according to the Sumy regional administration.
The strike on Sumy, across the border from Russia’s Kursk region that has been partially occupied by Ukraine since August, hit residential buildings and a school, which had to be evacuated.
Meanwhile, Russia launched a missile and 139 long-range drones into Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force. Those attacks affected seven regions of Ukraine and injured multiple people.


Russian President Vladimir Putin announces an Easter ceasefire in Ukraine

Updated 5 sec ago
Follow

Russian President Vladimir Putin announces an Easter ceasefire in Ukraine

  • Ceasefire will last from 6 p.m. Moscow time on Saturday to midnight following Easter Sunday

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a temporary Easter ceasefire in Ukraine, the Kremlin said Saturday.

According to the Kremlin, the ceasefire will last from 6 p.m. Moscow time (1500 GMT) on Saturday to midnight (2100 GMT) following Easter Sunday.

“Guided by humanitarian considerations, today from 18:00 00:00 from Sunday to Monday, the Russian side declares an Easter truce. I order that all military actions be stopped for this period,” Putin said at a meeting with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, the Kremlin’s Press Service quoted him as saying.

“We assume that the Ukrainian side will follow our example. At the same time, our troops must be ready to repel possible violations of the truce and provocations from the enemy, any of its aggressive actions,” Putin said.


Cambodia welcomes Japanese navy ships to naval base that US suspects is for China’s special use

Updated 34 min 55 sec ago
Follow

Cambodia welcomes Japanese navy ships to naval base that US suspects is for China’s special use

  • Tokyo has developed increasingly close ties with Cambodia in recent years
  • China and Cambodia have close political, military, and economic ties

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Two Japanese naval ships docked Saturday at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base, whose recently completed Chinese-funded upgrade has heightened US concerns that it will be used as a strategic outpost for China’s navy in the Gulf of Thailand.
The visit by the two minesweepers, the 141-meter (463-foot) -long Bungo and the 67-meter (219-foot) -long Etajima, part of the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force, marks the first foreign navy visit since the base’s expansion project was completed earlier this month.
Tokyo has developed increasingly close ties with Cambodia in recent years, seeking to offset China’s influence in the region, and Cambodia invited it to make the renovated port’s first port call, widely seen as an attempt to allay Washington’s concerns.
Both Japanese ships, making a four-day port call with a total of 170 sailors, docked at the base’s new pier, where Cambodian officials, including Rear Adm. Mean Savoeun, deputy commander of the base, held a welcome ceremony.
Concerns about China’s activities at the Ream base emerged in 2019 following a Wall Street Journal report alleging a draft agreement that would grant China 30-year use of the base for military personnel, weapon storage, and warship berthing. The US government has publicly and repeatedly aired its concerns.
China and Cambodia have close political, military, and economic ties. They commenced the port project in 2022, which included the demolition of previous naval structures built by the US at the base.
Cambodia has stated that warships from all friendly countries are welcome to dock at the new pier, provided they meet certain conditions. When Japanese Defense Minister Gen. Nakatani announced the planned visit on Tuesday, he said Japan’s port call symbolizes friendship with Cambodia and is key to regional stability and peace.
He stated that the visit would help ensure Cambodia has an open and transparent naval port, while noting the concerns over China’s growing efforts to secure overseas outposts for military expansion.
The port call came just one day after Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded a two-day state visit to Cambodia aimed at further strengthening China’s strong ties with its closest ally in Southeast Asia.
A statement on Saturday from Japan’s embassy in Cambodia stated that the two vessels are on a mission that began in January to visit 11 countries across Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. The port call in Cambodia is considered a “historically significant event for Japan-Cambodia relations,” it said.
The embassy emphasized that the journey of the Japanese vessels “underlines the importance of freedom of navigation, free and open international order based on international law, and its development.”
In December last year, a US Navy warship called at the nearby civilian port of Sihanoukville on a five-day visit. The visit by the USS Savannah, carrying a crew of 103, was the first in eight years by a US military vessel to Cambodia.


A US citizen was held for pickup by ICE even after proving he was born in the country

Updated 19 April 2025
Follow

A US citizen was held for pickup by ICE even after proving he was born in the country

  • It is unclear if Lopez Gomez showed documents proving he is a citizen to the arresting officers
  • Court records show Judge Lashawn Riggans found no basis for the charge

MIAMI, USA: A US citizen was arrested in Florida for allegedly being in the country illegally and held for pickup by immigration authorities even after his mother showed a judge her son’s birth certificate and the judge dismissed charges.
Juan Carlos Lopez Gomez, 20, was in a car that was stopped just past the Georgia state line by the Florida Highway Patrol on Wednesday, said Thomas Kennedy, a spokesperson at the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
Gomez and others in the car were arrested under a new Florida law, which is on hold, making it a crime for people who are in the country illegally to enter the state.
It is unclear if Lopez Gomez showed documents proving he is a citizen to the arresting officers. He was held at Leon County Jail and released after his case received widespread media coverage.
The charge of illegal entry into Florida was dropped Thursday after his mother showed the judge his state identification card, birth certificate and Social Security card, said Kennedy, who attended the hearing.
Court records show Judge Lashawn Riggans found no basis for the charge.
Lopez Gomez briefly remained in custody after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement requested he remain there for 48 hours, a common practice when the agency wants to take custody of someone. ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
The case drew widespread attention because ICE is not supposed to take custody of US-born citizens. While the immigration agency can occasionally get involved in cases of naturalized citizens who committed offenses such as lying on immigration forms, it has no authority over people born in the US
Adding to the confusion is a federal judge’s ruling to put a hold on enforcement of the Florida law against people who are in the country illegally entering the state, which meant it should not have been enforced.
“No one should be arrested under that law, let alone a US citizen,” said Alana Greer, an immigration attorney from the Florida Immigrant Coalition. “They saw this person, he didn’t speak English particularly well, and so they arrested him and charged him with this law that no one (should) be charged with.”


Money, power, violence in high-stakes Philippine elections

Updated 19 April 2025
Follow

Money, power, violence in high-stakes Philippine elections

  • The country’s elections commission, Comelec, recorded 46 acts of political violence
  • Comelec said “fewer than 20” candidates have been killed so far this campaign season, which it notes is a drop

MANILA: Philippines election hopefuls like mayoral candidate Kerwin Espinosa have to ask themselves whether the job is worth taking a bullet.
The country’s elections commission, Comelec, recorded 46 acts of political violence between January 12 and April 11, including the shooting of Espinosa.
At a rally this month, someone from the crowd fired a bullet that went through his chest and exited his arm, leaving him bleeding but alive.
Others have been less lucky.
A city council hopeful, a polling officer and a village chief were among those killed in similar attacks in the run-up to mid-term elections on May 12.
Comelec said “fewer than 20” candidates have been killed so far this campaign season, which it notes is a drop.
“This is much lower, very low compared to the past,” commission spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco told AFP, citing a tally of about 100 deaths in the last general election.
Analysts warned that such violence will likely remain a fixture of the Philippines’ political landscape.
The immense influence of the posts is seen as something worth killing for.
Holding municipal office means control over jobs, police departments and disbursements of national tax funds, said Danilo Reyes, an associate professor at the University of the Philippines’ political science department.
“Local chief executives have discretion when it comes to how to allocate the funding, which projects, priorities,” he said.
Rule of law that becomes weaker the farther one gets from Manila also means that regional powerbrokers can act with effective impunity, said Cleve Arguelles, CEO of Manila-based WR Numero Research.
“Local political elites have their own kingdoms, armed groups and... patronage networks,” he said, noting violence is typically highest in the archipelago nation’s far north and south.
“The stakes are usually high in a local area where only one family is dominant or where there is involvement of private armed groups,” Arguelles said.
“If you lose control of... city hall, you don’t just lose popular support. You actually lose both economic and political power.”
In the absence of strong institutions to mediate disagreements, Reyes said, “confrontational violence” becomes the go-to.
Espinosa was waiting for his turn to speak at a campaign stop in central Leyte province on April 10 when a shooter emerged from the crowd and fired from about 50 meters (164 feet) away, according to police.
Police Brig. Gen. Jean Fajardo told reporters this week that seven police officers were “being investigated” as suspects.
Convictions, however, are hard to come by.
While Comelec’s Laudiangco insisted recent election-related shootings were all making their way through regional court systems, he could provide no numbers.
Data compiled by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project show that in 79 percent of violent acts targeting local government members between 2018 and 2022 the perpetrators were never identified.
National-level politicians, meanwhile, reliant on local political bases to deliver votes, have little incentive to press for serious investigations, said Reyes.
“The only way you can ensure national leaders win positions is for local allies to deliver votes,” he said.
“There are convictions but very rarely, and it depends on the potential political fallout on the national leaders as well as the local leaders.”
It’s part of the “grand bargain” in Philippine politics, Arguelles said.
Local elites are “tolerated by the national government so long as during election day they can also deliver votes when they’re needed.”
Three days after Espinosa’s shooting, a district board candidate and his driver were rushed to hospital after someone opened fire on them in the autonomous area of Mindanao.
Election-season violence has long plagued the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, known as the BARMM.
Comelec assumed “direct control” over the municipalities of Buluan and Datu Odin Sinsuat after municipal election officer Bai Maceda Lidasan Abo and her husband were shot dead last month.
Since last year, Comelec has held the power to directly control and supervise not only local election officials but also law enforcement.
Top police officials in the two municipalities were removed for “gross negligence and incompetence” after allegedly ignoring requests to provide security details for the slain Comelec official.
Their suspensions, however, will last only from “campaigning up to... the swearing-in of the winners,” Comelec’s Laudiangco said.
The commission’s actions were part of a “tried and tested security plan” that is showing real results, he said.
But he conceded that the interwoven nature of family, power and politics in the provinces would continue to create a combustible brew.
“You have a lot of closely related people in one given jurisdiction... That ensures polarization. It becomes personal between neighbors.
“We all know Filipinos are clannish, that’s our culture. But we’re improving slowly.”


Afghan FM tells Pakistan’s top diplomat deportations are ‘disappointment’

Updated 19 April 2025
Follow

Afghan FM tells Pakistan’s top diplomat deportations are ‘disappointment’

  • Pakistan has launched a strict campaign to evict by the end of the month more than 800,000 Afghans
  • “Muttaqi expressed his deep concern and disappointment over the situation and forced deportation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan,” Ahmad said

KABUL: Afghanistan’s foreign minister expressed “deep concern and disappointment” to his Pakistani counterpart on Saturday over the forced deportation of tens of thousands of Afghans since the start of April.
Pakistan has launched a strict campaign to evict by the end of the month more than 800,000 Afghans who have had their residence permits canceled, including some who were born in Pakistan or lived there for decades.
Pakistan’s top diplomat Ishaq Dar flew to Kabul for a day-long visit on Saturday where he held discussions with Afghan Taliban officials, including Prime Minister Hasan Akhund and Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.
“Muttaqi expressed his deep concern and disappointment over the situation and forced deportation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan,” the Afghan foreign ministry’s deputy spokesperson Zia Ahmad said on X.
“He strongly urged Pakistani authorities to prevent the suppression of the rights of Afghans living there and those coming here.”
Ahmad added that Dar reassured officials that Afghans “will not be mistreated.”
Afghans in Pakistan have reported weeks of arbitrary arrests, extortion and harassment by authorities as they ramp up their campaign to expel migrants.
Islamabad has said nearly 85,000 have already crossed into Afghanistan, with convoys of Afghan families heading to border crossings each day fearing raids, arrests or separation from family members.
On Friday, Pakistan’s deputy interior minister Tallal Chaudhry told a news conference that “there will not be any sort of leniency and extension in the deadline.”
“When you arrive without any documents, it only deepens the uncertainty of whether you’re involved in narcotics trafficking, supporting terrorism, or committing other crimes,” he added.
Analysts, however, say it is a politically motivated strategy to put pressure on Afghanistan’s Taliban government over escalating security concerns.
The relationship between the two neighbors has soured as attacks in Pakistan’s border regions have soared, following the return of the Taliban government in Kabul in 2021.
Last year was the deadliest in Pakistan for a decade, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of allowing militants to take refuge in Afghanistan, from where they plan attacks.
The Taliban government denies the charge.
Chaudhry said on Friday that nearly 85,000 Afghans have crossed into Afghanistan since the start of April, the majority of them undocumented.
More than half of them were children, according to the United Nations refugee agency, entering a country where girls and women are banned from education after secondary school and barred from many sectors of work.
Afghanistan’s refugees ministry spokesman told AFP on Saturday the Taliban authorities had recorded some 71,000 Afghan returnees through the two main border points with Pakistan between April 1 and 18.
In the first phase of returns in 2023, hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans were forced across the border in the space of a few weeks.
In the second phase announced in March, the Pakistan government canceled the residence permits of more than 800,000 Afghans and warned thousands more awaiting relocation to other countries to leave by the end of April.
Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan over the past several decades to flee successive wars, but tensions with the Afghan community have risen as Pakistan’s economic and security concerns have deepened.
The move to expel Afghans is widely supported by Pakistanis.
“They are totally disrespectful toward our country. They have abused us, they have used us. One can’t live in a country if they don’t respect it,” said Ahmad Waleed, standing in his shop on Friday in Rawalpindi, near the capital.