Ukraine-Russia battle newest: Zelensky accuses Moscow of ‘manipulation’ over Kremlin calls for on Black Sea truce

Downing Street has said it is “hopeful of the progress” following the White House announcement that Ukraine and Russia have agreed to pause hostilities in the Black Sea.

But the UK government was unclear whether it would follow American efforts to ease some sanctions on Russia as part of the deal agreed on Tuesday – after the US appeared to signal its intention to ease sanctions on Russian fertiliser and agricultural goods and improve Moscow’s access to maritime insurance, ports and payment systems.

Immediately following news of the agreement, a No 10 spokesperson declined to say whether the UK would follow any easing of sanctions, saying: “Our position at the moment is that we are obviously hopeful of the progress.

“We are following developments closely.”

Western nations, including the UK, have imposed a series of sanctions on Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including increased tariffs on Russian fertiliser and agricultural products and prohibiting companies from providing insurance for shipments of certain Russian goods.

The Royal Navy has shadowed three Russian ships through the Channel.

Minehunter HMS Cattistock and a Wildcat helicopter were deployed to escort survey ship Admiral Vladimirskiy during its voyage, the Royal Navy said.

This operation was followed quickly by another, as HMS Somerset and tanker RFA Tidesurge were deployed to escort Russian landing ship RFN Alexander Otrakovsky and merchant vessel MV Ascalon through the Channel and North Sea as the pair sailed towards the Baltic.

The two Russian ships had recently left the Mediterranean.

The latest operations follow a similar mission last week which saw Royal Navy warships and helicopters track a Russian task group returning from Syria.

While Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has said the Black Sea ceasefire deal will be effective immediately, the Kremlin said that the deal was dependent upon Western sanctions being lifted against Russian companies involved in food and fertiliser exports.

The Kremlin said that the US had agreed to help to restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports, but said implementation of the deal would require Western sanctions on Russia’s Rosselkhozbank – which services agriculture firms – to be lifted, and the bank’s access to the Swift international messaging system restored.

Sanctions on Russian food and fertiliser exporters, insurance firms, servicing food and fertiliser shipments, restrictions on vessels and trade finance operations, would have to be lifted as well, it said.

The crew of one of Ukraine’s few patrolling vessels, a reconditioned former US coastguard Island-class cutter, is tired. They were up all night manning the ship’s double barrelled cannon, shooting at Russian Shahed drones that swarmed the skies over Odesa.

But, as merchant ships sailed quietly into the ports along Ukraine’s southern coast, the crew was confident. They haven’t seen a Russian vessel for months.

Russian skippers are probably more anxious. Since 2022, Ukraine – with a navy numbering around 11,000 personnel – has sunk at least 20 Russian vessels; among them cruisers, the Moskva flagship, several troop landing ships, and numerous smaller vessels.

These losses have all been down to a new form of naval warfare now pioneered by Ukraine’s navy because, aside from the Island-class patrol boat, and a handful of small boats in what’s known as a “mosquito force”, Ukraine isn’t bothering with ships.

Former Royal Navy mine hunters transferred to the Ukrainian navy are stuck in the UK because they cannot travel through the Bosphorus Straights. Turkey has banned military traffic through the strategic route since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The focus instead has been to use long range rockets, cruise missiles, underwater and surface drones – almost all of them home-made in Ukraine. They’ve almost harried Moscow’s Black Sea fleet out of business.

Our world affairs editor Sam Kiley reports from the Black Sea:

The ceasefire agreed by Moscow and Kyiv in the Black Sea will be effective immediately, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Ukraine will seek more weapons and sanctions on Russia from Donald Trump if Moscow broke the deals, Mr Zelensky added.

The United States said earlier it had made separate agreements with Kyiv and Moscow to ensure safe navigation in the Black Sea and to implement a ban on strikes against energy facilities in the two countries.

“If the Russians violate this, then I have a direct question for President Trump. If they violate, here is the evidence – we ask for sanctions, we ask for weapons, etc,” Mr Zelensky told reporters at a news conference in Kyiv.

World affairs editor Sam Kiley writes:

Ukraine has agreed to a ceasefire over the Black Sea and in attacks between Russia and Ukraine on energy resources.

This is a concession by Kyiv. Ukraine has been winning the war against Russia’s energy infrastructure supplying its forces in Ukraine. And Ukraine rules the Black Sea.

The Kyiv ministry of defence has warned Russia that its ships should not stray out of the “eastern Black Sea” or risk attack, because it knows that Russian ships have been stuck in ports hiding from Ukrainian missiles and drones for months.

This ceasefire is an effort to keep in favour with Donald Trump long enough to continue to get intelligence feeds from the US, until Europe and other allies can step in. Similarly European efforts to replace unreliable military supplies from the US to Ukraine will take some time.

So Kyiv is gambling with its naval dominance in the hope that eventually it won’t have to rely on an administration that so publicly and materially is rooting for a Putin victory.

Putin, however, is presiding over a collapsing economy, a land war that has left untold numbers of bodies abandoned in the Donbas “meat grinder” and has flattened the Ukrainian provinces he claimed to be saving.

If Ukraine can last another year and get the support it once got from Washington from elsewhere… it could win this war.

Further contacts between US and Russian officials on achieving a proposed ceasefire in Ukraine are likely to follow a round of talks Monday, a Kremlin official said Tuesday, but no concrete plans have yet been made.

The American and Russian negotiators held talks throughout the day on Monday in the capital of Saudi Arabia to hammer out details on a partial pause in the 3-year-old war in Ukraine, a day after US officials held separate talks in Riyadh with a team from Kyiv.

It has been a struggle to reach even a limited, 30-day ceasefire — which Moscow and Kyiv agreed to in principle last week — with both sides continuing to attack each other with drones and missiles and disagreement over what kinds of targets would be included in a pause on strikes.

Read more here:

Following three days of intense negotiations in Saudi Arabia, the White House has confirmed that both sides have agreed to halt strikes in the Black Sea.

A number of other measures have been agreed, including measures towards implementing a ceasefire on energy infrastructure.

Notably, the deals are agreed between the US and the respective countries, rather than directly between Moscow and Kyiv.

Here is a look at what has been agreed, according to the White House:

Both sides agree to:

• Eliminate force and ensure safe navigation of ships in the Black Sea (*Ukraine specifies that Russian vessels moving beyond the eastern area of the Black Sea will constitute a violation of the deal in its view).
• Develop measures for implementing the agreement to ban strikes on energy facilities.
• Work with third party countries to implement the energy and sea agreements.
• Work towards achieving a durable and lasting peace.

Russia only:

• US will help “restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports”.
• US will help Russia to lower maritime insurance costs and enhance access to ports and payment systems.

Ukraine only:

• The US remains committed in “helping achieve the exchange of prisoners of war, the release of civilian detainees, and the return of forcibly transferred Ukrainian children”.

Any movement of Russian military vessels outside of the eastern part of the Black Sea will be regarded as a violation of the Black Sea agreement, Ukraine’s defence ministry has said.

“The Ukrainian side emphasizes that all movement by Russia of its military vessels outside of Eastern part of the Black Sea will constitute violation of the spirit of this agreement, will be regarded as violation of the commitment to ensure safe navigation of the Black Sea and threat to the national security of Ukraine,” the ministry wrote on X.

“In this case Ukraine will have full right to exercise right to self-defense,” the statement added.

Kyiv confirmed it had agreed to “ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes”.

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to ensure the safety of commercial shipping in the Black Sea, the White House has said.

A White House statement said US, Russian and Ukrainian officials had “agreed to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea”.