After hours of exhausting negotiations that ended with Ukraine agreeing to a Trump administration proposal for a 30-day cease-fire with Russia, it was not until the delegation from Kyiv was flying home that it got the news it was most desperate to hear: American military assistance was flowing again.
“I will only say that there is no better reward for such a crazy day than to learn, while already sitting on the plane, a short dry confirmation” that military aid had restarted, Gosha Tykhyi, a spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign minister, wrote on social media after talks with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia.
The resumption of U.S. weapons deliveries and intelligence sharing was one outcome of the meeting on Tuesday in the coastal city of Jeddah. Ukraine agreeing to the cease-fire proposal was another — but only if Russia agrees to do the same.
While Ukrainians were deeply skeptical that Russia would accept the proposal for a cease-fire, the unfreezing of critical American assistance was widely seen as a positive development that could help mend the ruptured relationship between Kyiv and Washington.
“I would like to thank President Trump for the constructive nature of the dialogue between our teams,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in his nightly address to the nation — seemingly taking care to publicly express gratitude after he was accused of not being appreciative enough during a disastrous Oval Office meeting last month with the American president that led to the suspension of U.S. military aid and intelligence sharing.
The sudden reduction in support came after weeks of growing tension as the White House seemed to more closely align itself with the Kremlin while increasing the pressure on its ally.
Ever since, Ukraine has sought to smooth over relations with the Trump administration. French and British officials coached the Ukrainian delegation before the talks in Jeddah about how to speak with the Americans, a Ukrainian official with the delegation said.
Mr. Tykhyi said that a key challenge for the Ukrainian delegation was to “control emotions” ahead of the meeting. Once the talks opened on Tuesday, he added, the Oval Office debacle also played a role in determining “the boundaries of the space for compromises and influenced the negotiating positions.”
It took more than eight hours of discussions to reach an agreement.
“It is in these last hours of the endgame, when fatigue is already showing, that a way out of the impasse and even difficult compromises suddenly become possible,” he said
At the conclusion of the meetings, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the burden was now on Russia to end the war.
“The ball is now in their court,” he said.
Mr. Zelensky echoed that sentiment in his speech to the nation. “Russia must also show whether it is ready to end the war — or continue it,” he said. “The time has come for the whole truth.”
If Russia does agree to the cease-fire, the challenge will be to make the peace enduring, Mr. Zelensky said.
The Kremlin has not said whether it will agree to the 30-day cease-fire. But the Ukrainian skepticism is informed by history: Russia violated two previous cease-fires, reached in 2014 and 2015, and denied an intention to invade just days before doing so in 2022.
“In my opinion, it will be like before when they introduced the cease-fire,” said Oleksandr Kovinko, a soldier fighting in eastern Ukraine. “We adhere to it, the enemy does not. And how it will actually be, it’s hard to imagine and predict.”
And for the Ukrainians who feel betrayed by the Trump administration’s recent moves, there was a fear that the United States might not be an honest broker.
“I have no hope that the U.S.A. has not completely shifted to Russia’s side,” said Yulia Podkydysheva, a hospice worker reached by phone in Chernivtsi, in western Ukraine.
Everyone, Ms. Podkydysheva said, could use 30 days “to breathe some air and see the light” after three years of unrelenting bombardment. But she does not think that rest will last.
“It will most likely be about some next round of struggle,” she said.
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