U.S. negotiations aim for 30-day Russia-Ukraine ceasefire — Witkoff

He said this in an interview with American blogger Tucker Carlson, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

 “The ultimate goal is a 30-day ceasefire, during which we will discuss a permanent ceasefire. We're not far from that, but the 30-day ceasefire is where we have to find out what all the conditions are on the battlefield, which is why I started with Kursk,” said Vitkoff, following Trump's claim that some Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region are surrounded, despite Kyiv's repeated denials. 

He also said that Russia and Ukraine's agreement to a ceasefire on energy infrastructure is a big step forward, so the conversation between Trump and Putin cannot be considered a failure. 

Witkoff emphasized that these topics had never been discussed before, but now they were part of the conversation. He mentioned that there had been no prior talks about reinstating a moratorium on naval strikes in the Black Sea, but its implementation was expected within the next week or so. While some details still needed to be addressed, he stressed that this was a significant and important development.

He added that there are “a lot of good, positive conversations coming from Russia about their willingness to look at all these different things.” 

• Yuri Ushakov, aide to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, announced that U.S. and Russian delegations will meet for negotiations in Riyadh on Monday, March 24.
• President Zelenskyy announced that Ukrainian and U.S. technical teams will meet in Saudi Arabia on Monday, March 24.
• At the same time, Special Representative Keith Kellogg said that the United States plans to hold separate meetings with Ukrainian and Russian representatives in Saudi Arabia in an effort to organize indirect talks.