MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/. At their March 23 talks in Riyadh, the Russian and US delegations discussed a possible ceasefire in the Black Sea, one which would put port and river infrastructure off limits for attack, an advisor to Vladimir Zelensky's office, Sergey Leshchenko, said.
"The meeting concerned two topics - infrastructure and security of navigation. We’re talking about a bilateral ceasefire, one where we do not attack their maritime facilities, including river infrastructure. And they would not attack our facilities - those in [Kiev-controlled] Kherson, Nikolayev [ports] and ports of the Odessa agglomeration (ports of Odessa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny - TASS)," he said on Ukraine's Rada TV channel. According to Leshchenko, the parties also discussed the potential continuation of prisoner exchanges.
He noted that the talks were used to put out feelers, and after them "meetings at a higher level are possible."
The Russian Defense Ministry earlier pointed out that Russian forces were striking Ukraine’s military-industrial infrastructure.
The first round of talks between the technical teams of Ukraine and the United States took place in the afternoon of Sunday, March 23, with the discussions lasting about six hours. The Ukrainian delegation included Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office Pavel Palisa, as well as representatives of the armed forces and energy specialists. The main topic was the cessation of strikes on energy infrastructure facilities. The representatives of the parties did not provide details of the discussions.