Ukraine Update Day 1,014….Black Sea Agreement….Putin wants to keep MORE….

The statements — which came after this week’s technical talks in Riyadh — differed in two key ways. The U.S. also separately agreed to help Russia gain access to the world markets to export fertilizer and other agricultural products and reiterated its commitment to Ukraine to help facilitate the exchange of prisoners of war, civilian detainees and kidnapped children….

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The partial ceasefire would prevent Ukraine from striking Russian oil production and exports, which Kyiv had found to be effective at bringing the war home to the Kremlin.

Most Ukrainians — or as many as 85 percent — view a partial ceasefire positively, according to a poll from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, conducted from March 12 to 22, or before the ban was updated to include the Black Sea….

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*A Black Sea maritime security deal aims to bring Moscow back to predictable grain and fertiliser markets that would allow for profit and ensure global food security, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said in remarks published late on Tuesday. “We want the grain and fertiliser market to be predictable, so that no one tries to ‘ward us off’ from it,” Lavrov told the Russian state Channel One television. “Not only because we want … to make a legitimate profit in fair competition, but also because we are concerned about the food security situation in Africa and other countries of the Global South.”

• Russia and Ukraine agreed to “eliminate the use of force” in the Black Sea after parallel talks with US negotiators in Saudi Arabia, though the Kremlin said a maritime ceasefire would start only if it received sanctions relief on agricultural exports. Donald Trump said that the US was reviewing the Russian conditionsafter the Kremlin insisted it had negotiated concessions with the White House that would mark the first major recision of sanctions since the full-scale invasion of 2022.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the deals did not require sanctions relief to come into force – which he said would weaken Ukraine’s position – and would come into force immediately. If Russia violated them he would ask Trump to impose additional sanctions on Moscow and provide more weapons for Ukraine, he said. “We have no faith in the Russians, but we will be constructive,” he said.

• The Ukrainian president also said there had been no agreement on an unconditional ceasefire because “the Russians didn’t want it”. He said he believed as the negotiations continued “people will not believe the Russians more and more with every day”.

• Zelenskyy criticised Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, who had said in the run-up to the talks that Russia’s staged referendums in the four Ukrainian regions it partially or completely occupies were legitimate and had demonstrated that “the overwhelming majority” wanted to be “under Russian rule”. The Ukrainian president said Witkoff’s comments “are very much in line with the messages of the Kremlin”, but he added that he hoped that over time the US negotiator and others in the White House would gradually come to see that the Russian leadership was insincere.

• Russia’s foreign ministry said the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was a Russian facility and transferring control of it to Ukraine or any other country was impossible. Russian forces seized the plant early in the invasion. Donald Trump, during a phone conversation this month with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, suggested the US could help run and possibly own Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, including Zaporizhzhia.

• Estonia’s top diplomat said Russia has gained an upper hand in the ceasefire talks and suggested the US consider a time limit if there is no progress, ahead of a meeting with secretary of state Marco Rubio.Estonian foreign minister Margus Tsahkna and his counterparts from Latvia and Lithuania met jointly on Tuesday in Washington with Rubio as the Baltic nations lead concerns over the new US push on Russia and Ukraine. “Putin has now an upper hand in some ways,” Tsahkna told AFP in an interview late Monday ahead of his talks with Rubio. “The question is now, how long is Trump actually going to give Putin to play the games?” he said.

• A Russian court sentenced on Tuesday a woman to two years’ jail for holding protest signs opposing President Vladimir Putin and the Ukraine conflict, the latest in a series of convictions targeting dissent. Elena Abramova, a translator from the north-western city of St Petersburg, publicly held up placards in 2023 that read “A world without war, a Russia without Putin!” and “Freedom for Navalny! Freedom for all political prisoners”, according to the city’s court service.

• Ukraine’s SBU security service said on Tuesday it had detained a serviceman in the Sumy region it accused of helping Moscow attack Ukrainian troops fighting in Russia’s Kursk region by giving away their location. “While at the front, the ‘mole’ was preparing coordinates for the aggressor’s missile and bomb attacks on the locations of Ukrainian troops,” the SBU alleged on Telegram…..

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ISW…Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 25, 2025

• US, Ukrainian, and Russian officials reached some agreements for temporary ceasefires on strikes against energy infrastructure and in the Black Sea. The details of these ceasefires remain unclear and evaluating the ceasefires’ specifics in the absence of officially published joint texts of the agreements signed by Russia and Ukraine remains difficult.
• The Kremlin’s and Umerov’s statements suggest that Russia and Ukraine may not yet be in agreement about whether the ceasefire has gone into effect or not as of March 25.
• Putin continues to reject Trump’s and Zelensky’s proposed temporary frontline ceasefire, despite agreeing to some form of ceasefire for strikes on energy infrastructure and in the Black Sea. Putin’s persistent stalling and intransigence are inhibiting Trump’s efforts to secure a lasting and stable peace settlement.
• The Kremlin stated that it will not implement the agreed ceasefire in the Black Sea until the United States lifts sanctions on Russian state-owned agricultural bank Rosselkhozbank and other unspecified financial organizations involved in international food and fertilizer trade.
• Russian forces recently advanced in the Kursk-Sumy Oblast border area, near Toretsk, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• The Russian military continues to deny rotations to soldiers who have been fighting in the war in Ukraine for years.

Daily Kos grunt Report for Today….