Negotiations spearheaded by a US delegation for a partial Russia-Ukraine ceasefire are underway in Saudi Arabia, the Kremlin has said.
The talks in Riyadh between a US delegation and Russian negotiators started on Monday morning.
It follows a round of discussions between US and Ukrainian negotiators, Russian media reported.
Reaching a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea will be the primary aim of the talks, the White House said, to allow for the free flow of shipping.
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White House national security adviser Mike Waltz told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday the teams will also discuss “the line of control” between the two countries, which he described as “verification measures, peacekeeping, freezing the lines where they are”.
He said “confidence-building measures” were being discussed, including the return of Ukrainian children taken by Russia.
It comes after US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff dismissed UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s plans as a “combination of a posture and a pose” in an interview with pro-Trump journalist Tucker Carlson.
The prime minister has suggested a “coalition of the willing”, made up of several European and NATO countries, could provide boots on the ground in Ukraine after a ceasefire.
Mr Witkoff, who is leading the US ceasefire negotiations with Ukraine and Russia, also accused the prime minister of adopting the “simplistic” notion that leaders “have all got to be like Winston Churchill”.
“The Russians are going to march across Europe. I think that’s preposterous. We have something called NATO that we did not have in World War Two,” he said.
Mr Witkoff recently met with the Russian leader in Moscow and told Carlson he “liked” Russian President Vladimir Putin, who in February 2022 shocked the world by launching a land, air and sea invasion of Ukraine.
“I don’t regard Putin as a bad guy,” Mr Witkoff said. “I thought that he was straight up with me.”
It comes as Russia launched its third consecutive overnight attack on Kyiv, wounding one person and damaging houses in the region, according to the city’s governor.
Ukraine’s air force said on Monday it shot down 57 out of 99 drones.
It follows a weekend of deadly strikes on Ukraine.
Analysis: Moscow can barely believe its luck
Kyiv might be furious at Steve Witkoff’s comments over the weekend but in Moscow, they’re lapping them up.
The US envoy’s interviews with Fox News and Tucker Carlson have made front page news, prompting talk of “mutual attraction” between the White House and the Kremlin.
That’s because Mr Witkoff repeated many of the lines we normally hear coming from Moscow: that Vladimir Putin “wants peace”; that European fears of further Russian invasions are “preposterous”; that the “root cause” of the war is not Russian aggression, but issues of Ukrainian nationhood.
Moscow can barely believe its luck. American and Russian officials are now speaking “the same language”, according to daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, which says Mr Witkoff’s comments show that Russia’s interests are “justified” and will be taken into account by the US.
Another newspaper, Kommersant, talks excitedly of Mr Witkoff’s “enthusiastic assessments” of President Putin.
But it’s Mr Witkoff’s remarks about Russia’s territorial claims that are receiving the most attention.
The former property mogul said that most people in the Russian-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine wanted to live under Russian rule, citing Moscow-organised referenda that were condemned as shams by the UN.
The comments were pounced on by Margarita Simonyan, the head of state broadcaster RT, who described them as the “main message” of Mr Trump’s Ukraine policy.
Writing on Telegram, she suggested the ground was being prepared for recognition of Russia’s territorial claims.
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Officials said at least seven people were killed in the country after Moscow launched a series of drone attacks on Saturday night.
The attacks struck the Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Odesa and Donetsk regions, as well as the capital.
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0:46 Child killed in Russian drone strike on Kyiv
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko described the attack as “massive”, adding emergency services were dispatched to several districts.
Three people, including a five-year-old child, were killed and 10 others were injured in Kyiv, the city’s military administration said.
