Ukraine has agreed to an immediate 30-day ceasefire negotiated by the United States if Russia also accepts the plan, officials announced Tuesday.
After Ukrainian representatives met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, they “expressed readiness to accept the US proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire, which can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties, and which is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation,” Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a joint statement with the U.S. Department of State:
“The United States will communicate to Russia that Russian reciprocity is the key to achieving peace,” the press release explained, adding that the U.S. will “immediately lift the pause” on providing intelligence and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
Delegates from both countries also discussed humanitarian efforts that could be carried out with the ceasefire, including “the exchange of prisoners of war, the release of civilian detainees, and the return of forcibly transferred Ukrainian children.”
Lastly, the joint statement added that both President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “agreed to conclude as soon as possible a comprehensive agreement for developing Ukraine’s critical mineral resources to expand Ukraine’s economy and guarantee Ukraine’s long-term prosperity and security.”
“We’ve gone from if the war is going to end — to now how the war is going to end,” said Waltz, according to CBS News reporter Jennifer Jacobs.
News of the upcoming mineral agreement comes soon after the deal between Trump and Zelensky nearly fell apart at the White House following their heated exchange in the Oval Office.
Though Tuesday’s press release said that the U.S. will handle communication with Russia, it is not yet clear how President Vladimir Putin will respond to the peace negotiations.
Rubio, a former Florida senator who was confirmed as Secretary of State on Trump’s first day back in office, met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov last month — though Lavrov was clear that Russia would surrender no territory to Ukraine.
Lavrov, who has served as Russia’s foreign minister for over 20 years, also stated that Russia would be entering talks with an expectation that the West would have to answer in some way for supporting the Ukrainian government, which he claimed has committed war crimes “worse than Hitler’s murderers” since Russia invaded nearly three years ago.
Following the February meeting, Putin adviser and former Russian ambassador to the U.S. Yury Ushakov said that it “went well” while acknowledging that it was “difficult to say” if any convergence of views between Washington and Moscow was possible. However, Ushakov noted at the time that a meeting between Trump and Putin was being worked on for the near future.
“The delegations of the two countries have a lot of work to do. We are ready for this but it is still difficult to speak about the specific date of the meeting between the two leaders… The issue was discussed. We are working out the terms of this meeting,” he said.
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