KYIV/RIYADH (Reuters) - Ukrainian and U.S. officials are expected to meet in Saudi Arabia late on Sunday to discuss a possible partial ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, part of an escalating diplomatic push by U.S. President Donald Trump to end three years of war.
The meeting will precede talks between the U.S. and Russian delegations which are scheduled for Monday.
The meetings follow a series of talks held in Saudi Arabia, first between the U.S. and Russia, and then later between the U.S. and Ukraine, when Kyiv accepted a 30-day truce proposal.
The Ukrainian delegation at Sunday's meeting will be led by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy earlier said this fact would allow Kyiv to act in a "very quick and very substantive" way.
However, Ukrainian officials have said they still see Sunday's meeting in Riyadh as purely technical.
Heorhii Tykhyi, foreign ministry spokesperson, said on Friday the Ukrainian and American sides were due "to clarify the modalities, the nuances of possible different ceasefire regimes, how to monitor them, how to control them, in general, what is included in their scope".
Last Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to Trump's proposal for Russia and Ukraine to stop attacks on each other's energy infrastructure for 30 days and ordered the Russian military to cease them.
The agreement fell short, however, of a wider agreement that the U.S. had sought, and which Kyiv backed, for a blanket 30-day truce in the war.
'SOMEWHAT UNDER CONTROL'
Trump said on Saturday that efforts to stop further escalation in the Ukraine-Russia conflict were "somewhat under control". The U.S. hopes to reach a broad ceasefire within weeks, targeting a truce agreement by April 20, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the planning.
Russian and U.S. experts meeting in Saudi Arabia on Monday are due to discuss ways to ensure the safety of shipping in the Black Sea, the Kremlin has said.
Despite all the diplomatic activity, Russia and Ukraine have both reported continued strikes, while Russian forces have also continued to advance slowly in eastern Ukraine, a region Moscow claims to have annexed.
A large-scale Russian drone attack on Kyiv overnight killed at least three people, including a 5-year-old child, causing fires in high-rise apartment buildings and damage throughout the capital, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday.
Meanwhile Russian authorities said on Sunday that their air defences had destroyed 59 Ukrainian drones targeting the country's southwestern regions, adding that the strikes had killed one person in Rostov.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv and Pesha Magid in Riyadh; Editing by Gareth Jones)
