Kremlin Sets Sanctions Relief as Condition for Black Sea Deal Implementation
Moscow has attached significant economic preconditions to a limited Black Sea navigation agreement brokered by the White House, demanding the lifting of Western sanctions before implementation, the Kremlin announced Tuesday.
“We’re thinking about all of them right now,” US President Donald Trump told reporters when asked about Russia’s demands. “There are five or six conditions. We are looking at all of them.”
The sanctions in question, targeting Russia’s agricultural bank and financial institutions involved in food exports, were imposed following Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of negotiating in bad faith. “They are already trying to twist the agreements and actually deceive both our mediators and the whole world,” Zelensky said in his nightly address.
The White House announcement came after separate diplomatic engagements with Ukrainian and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia. The proposed arrangement would prohibit military force in Black Sea shipping lanes while extending a previously announced moratorium on targeting energy infrastructure.
Though Zelensky confirmed Ukraine had agreed to the maritime security provisions, he disputed the Kremlin’s claim that an energy infrastructure protection agreement had already taken effect on March 18.
“There is something that the Kremlin is lying about again: that the alleged silence in the Black Sea depends on the issue of sanctions and that the alleged date of the beginning of the silence on energy is 18 March. Moscow always lies,” Zelensky said.
The White House statements avoided directly addressing Russia’s preconditions but included language suggesting potential sanctions flexibility, promising to improve “Russia’s access to agricultural export markets” and enhance “access to payment systems” – an apparent reference to the SWIFT international banking network from which Russian institutions were largely excluded.
The arrangement resembles the UN-brokered Black Sea grain initiative that operated earlier in the conflict until Russia allowed it to expire in July 2023. That deal had enabled Ukraine, traditionally one of the world’s largest grain exporters, to bypass Russia’s maritime blockade.
Trump, who campaigned on promises to swiftly end the Ukraine conflict, has yet to secure the comprehensive peace deal he once suggested could be achieved within his first 24 hours in office.
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