The development, which was announced by the White House on Tuesday, came after three days of talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Both Ukraine and Russia support a proposed ceasefire in the Black Sea, the US has announced.
In two statements released on Tuesday, the White House said that Kyiv and Moscow “have agreed to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea”.
The development comes after three days of talks between the US and the two adversaries in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.
The meetings did not involve any direct talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials.
In its readouts, the White House confirmed that both countries also agreed to “develop measures” to “ban strikes against energy facilities”.
The Trump administration went on to reiterate that “the killing on both sides … must stop”.
Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s defence minister, took to X on Tuesday afternoon to clarify Kyiv’s position on the Black Sea.
“The Ukrainian side emphasises that all movement by Russia of its military vessels outside of the 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,” he wrote.
“In this case Ukraine will have full right to exercise right to self-defence,” he added.
His comments came after senior Russian politician Grigory Karasin, who took part in the talks, told Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti that the conversation in Saudi Arabia had been “very interesting, difficult, but quite constructive.”
“We were at it all day from morning until late at night,” Karasin was quoted by the agency as saying on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, questions have appeared over the significance of Tuesday’s deal. Russia has had no military grip in the Black Sea since the early days of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while the Romanian corridor has been providing safe passage for civilian cargo ships.
According to the Ukrainian navy, 27 of Russia’s 80 warships in the Black Sea before the invasion were damaged or destroyed since early 2022. Some 15 vessels are undergoing repairs.
Different interpretations of what ceasefire means
The Trump administration has struggled to get both sides to sign up to a limited, 30-day ceasefire.
Both Kyiv and Moscow agreed in principle to that proposal last week, but since then, both sides have continued to attack each other with drones and missiles.
ADVERTISEMENTRussia and Ukraine have also taken differing interpretations of what a possible partial ceasefire would look like and have disagreed over what kinds of targets would be included in a pause.
While the White House has said a partial ceasefire would include ending attacks on “energy and infrastructure”, the Kremlin declared that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told state-run Channel One TV that the Russian and US delegations in Riyadh had discussed “primarily issues of safe shipping in the Black Sea,” a major shipping corridor on which both Russia and Ukraine have ports and coastlines.
Lavrov also said that Moscow is open to resuming “in some form, acceptable to everyone” a 2022 deal that allowed Ukraine to ship grain through the Black Sea to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, where growing hunger is a threat and high food prices have pushed more people into poverty.
ADVERTISEMENTThe landmark Black Sea Grain initiative was brokered by the UN and Turkey in the summer of 2022 but Moscow stopped participation the following year saying its demands to get Russian food and fertiliser to the world weren’t being met and the agreement collapses.
