Several hours of normal negotiations on neutral ground. And then a joint communiqué, testifying to a real breakthrough: Kyiv accepted the principle of a temporary ceasefire in the war underway since 2022. Eleven days after the confrontation between Donald Trump, his vice president JD Vance and Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, bilateral relations between the US and Ukraine returned to more reassuring ground, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday, March 11.

In a joint text published at the end of the meeting, the Ukrainian delegation led by the head of the presidential administration, Andriy Yermak, "expressed readiness to accept the US proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire, which can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties, and which is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation."

This would be a complete ceasefire, including on the front line – not just around critical infrastructure – air and sea. "The president [Trump] has made it clear and certainly made it clear to us that all fighting needs to stop," said Mike Waltz, US national security adviser, who led the US delegation along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. As a result of this Ukrainian openness, the US is committed to immediately restoring arms deliveries – within the framework of budget lines already voted under the Biden administration – as well as intelligence cooperation.

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