WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine seeks progress towards peace at Saudi Arabia talks

Senior officials from some 40 countries including the U.S., China and India held talks in Saudi Arabia on Saturday that Kyiv and its allies hope will lead to agreement on key principles for a peaceful end to Russia's war in Ukraine.

The two-day meeting is part of a diplomatic push by Ukraine to build support beyond its core Western backers by reaching out to Global South countries that have been reluctant to take sides in a conflict that has hit the global economy.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who hopes to agree principles for a summit of global leaders that he is seeking on the issue in the autumn, said it would be important to hold bilateral talks on the sidelines of the Jeddah meeting.

Speaking on Saturday, he acknowledged there were differences among the countries attending, but said the rules-based international order must be restored.

"Different continents, different political approaches to world affairs. But all are united by the priority of international law," he said.

Russia is not attending, though the Kremlin has said it will keep an eye on the talks. Ukrainian, Russian and international officials say there is no prospect of direct peace talks between Ukraine and Russia at present, with the war raging.

A European Union official said there would be no joint statement after the meeting, but that the Saudis would present a plan for further talks, with working groups to discuss issues such as global food security, nuclear safety and prisoner releases.

The official described the talks as positive, and said there was "agreement that respect of territorial integrity and (the) sovereignty of Ukraine needs to be at the heart of any peace settlement".

The world's top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, which has maintained contacts with both sides since Russia invaded Ukraine last February, has played a role in convening countries that did not join earlier meetings, Western diplomats have said.

China, which did not attend a previous round of talks in Copenhagen, is sending Special Envoy for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui, Beijing said on Saturday. China has kept close economic and diplomatic ties with Russia since the conflict began and has rejected calls to condemn Moscow.

"We have many disagreements and we have heard different positions, but it is important that our principles are shared," he said.

Indian National Security Adviser Shri Ajit Doval has also arrived in Jeddah for the talks, the Indian embassy in Riyadh said on social media on Saturday. Like China, India has kept close ties with Russia and refused to condemn it for the war. It has ramped up imports of Russian oil.

Of the other countries in the BRICS group with Russia, China and India, South Africa has sent President Cyril Ramaphosa's security adviser Sydney Mufamadi, and Brazil's top foreign policy adviser, Celso Amorim, will join by videolink.

SAUDI DIPLOMACY

Western officials and analysts said Saudi diplomacy had been important in securing China's presence at the talks.

Under de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MbS, the kingdom has sought a bigger role on the world stage and has pushed to expand ties with major powers outside the old framework of its relationship with the U.S.

Riyadh has worked with Moscow in recent years on oil market policy and, along with Turkey, it helped mediate a prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia last year. Zelenskiy attended an Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia last year where MbS voiced readiness to help mediate in the war.

Saudi Arabia has also built a closer relationship with China over the past year, giving an effusive welcome to Chinese President Xi Jinping when he visited Riyadh in December, and seeking to join the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

In March, Beijing brokered a resumption of ties between Saudi Arabia and its arch regional foe Iran.

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Middle East fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute, said China's attendance sent a signal of support for Saudi Arabian diplomacy that built on other areas of recent Chinese-Saudi cooperation.

"Chinese participation in the talks is a boost to the Saudi narrative that their convening power and ability to leverage relationships is qualitatively different to Western parties," he said.

However, China's presence does not indicate it will ultimately agree to the results sought by Ukraine and its allies, said Yun Sun, director of the China programme at the Stimson Center in Washington.

"Participating in a meeting only suggests the willingness to listen and discuss. It by no means suggests that China has to agree to anything in the end," Sun said.

** Ukraine hits Russian tanker with sea drone near Crimea Bridge

A Ukrainian sea drone full of explosives struck a Russian fuel tanker overnight near a bridge linking Russia to annexed Crimea, the second such attack in 24 hours, both sides said on Saturday.

No one was hurt, but the Crimean Bridge and ferry transport were suspended for several hours, according to Russian-installed officials in Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.

A Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters that the drone with 450 kg of explosives hit the SIG vessel as it transported fuel for the Russian military in Ukrainian territorial waters.

"The tanker was well loaded with fuel, so the 'fireworks' were seen from afar," the source said, of the joint operation by Ukraine's navy and security service.

Kyiv says destroying Russia's military infrastructure inside Russia or on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine is crucial to its counteroffensive after the February 2022 invasion.

Another sea drone attack on Russia's navy base at Novorossiysk damaged a warship on Friday, the first time the Ukrainian navy had projected its power so far from its shores.

And a Ukrainian government agency warned on Saturday that six Russian Black Sea ports - Anapa, Novorossiysk, Gelendzhik, Tuapse, Sochi, and Taman - were in "war risk area".

FUEL FOR TROOPS

The SIG tanker had been supplying oil to Russian troops in Syria, according to Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed official in Ukraine's southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia.

The United States imposed sanctions on the tanker and its owner, St. Petersburg-based Transpetrochart, in 2019 for helping provide jet fuel in Syria.

Vasyl Malyuk, head of Ukraine's SBU security service, did not directly confirm the latest attack but said any incident with Russian ships or the Crimean bridge was "an absolutely logical and efficient step towards the enemy".

"Moreover, such special operations are conducted in the territorial waters of Ukraine and are completely legal," Malyuk said on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia's Novorossiysk Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying there was no fuel spill from the SIG, as the ship had been carrying only technical ballast. Recovery work was underway with two tugboats nearby.

Rogov posted an audio clip on Telegram in which the SIG requested a tow. He also posted pictures of what he described as shattered fixtures and equipment inside the vessel.

"The SIG tanker ... received a hole in the engine room near the waterline on the starboard side, preliminarily as a result of a sea drone attack," Russia's Federal Marine and River Transport agency said in a statement on Telegram.

The Moscow-installed authorities in Crimea said the bridge, which was completed by Russia in 2018 and has come under serious attack twice in the war, was not targeted.

** Russia official blames Ukraine cluster shells for Donetsk fire

A university building in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine was in flames late on Saturday following Ukrainian shelling, the Russian-installed mayor of the city said.

"As a result of the latest attack on Donetsk, the first building of the university of economics and trade is on fire," Alexei Kulemzin, the Russian-installed mayor, said on Telegram.

He said preliminary information indicated the cause of the fire was an attack by Ukrainian forces using cluster munitions. Reuters could not verify details of his account.

Ukraine, which received supplies of cluster munitions from the United States last month, has vowed to use them only to dislodge concentrations of enemy soldiers.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Medvedev hints at more attacks on Western Ukraine

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has suggested more devastating attacks on Ukraine’s western regions in response to a string of drone strikes against Moscow’s ships and civilian vessels in the Black Sea.

Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, made his comments on Saturday after a sea drone damaged an oil tanker off the coast of Crimea. The ex-president blamed the attack on Ukraine, saying it was meant to trigger an environmental disaster in the Black Sea, and he called for Moscow to follow up on recent port attacks that came in response to last month’s Ukrainian drone strike on the Crimean Bridge.

“Scumbags and freaks understand only cruelty and force,” Medvedev said in a social media post. “Apparently, the strikes on Odessa, Izmail and other places were not enough for them.”

He also suggested that Russian retaliation for the drone attacks would eliminate any chance of reviving the grain deal that had enabled Ukraine to ship its grain exports through the Black Sea. “If the Kiev scum want to create an ecological disaster in the Black Sea, they should get one on the part of their territory that will soon fall to Poland and that will stink for centuries after that. That will be the final judgment on the grain deal,”Medvedev warned.

Ukrainian sea drones also targeted civilian ships and their Russian naval escorts earlier this week, and attacked the Black Sea Fleet base at Novorossiysk on Friday. Kiev also has stepped up aerial drone attacks on civilian targets in Russian territory, including Moscow’s financial district.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has claimed that Ukrainian drone attacks on civilian targets are attempts to distract from Kiev’s faltering counteroffensive in the Donbass region.

** Zelensky fears peace pressure from West – NYT

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is reportedly worried that Western nations may ramp up pressure to negotiate a peace agreement with Russia, ending a bloody conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Kiev’s troops in just the past two months.

“As furious battles raged across the front lines of Europe’s bloodiest war in decades, Zelensky told his ambassadors on Wednesday that things would grow even more difficult as pressure was likely to build in the coming months to find a negotiated path to peace,” the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The Ukrainian president described Wednesday’s gathering in Kiev with diplomats as an “emergency strategy session” heading into this weekend’s Ukraine peace summit in Saudi Arabia, the newspaper said. “The meeting is the starting point of what is expected to be a major Ukrainian diplomatic push in the coming months to try to undercut Russia.”

Zelensky told his ambassadors that they must use every available tool – “official and unofficial, institutional and media, cultural diplomacy and the power of ordinary human sincerity” – to convince both allies and neutral nations that “the only road to a lasting peace is complete Russian defeat,”according to the report.

However, many of the nations attending the summit in Saudi Arabia have resisted US pressure to take sides in the crisis, seeing the conflict as a “contest between superpowers” in which they want no part. “This is not only a conflict between Russia and Ukraine,” said Celso Amorim, an adviser to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Speaking remotely on Saturday at the Saudi-hosted summit, he added: “This is also a chapter in the longstanding rivalry between Russia and the West.”

Russian officials have argued that Kiev’s Western backers are only prolonging the bloodshed in Ukraine by continuing to send billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to the former Soviet republic. More than 43,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed since Kiev began a counteroffensive in the Donbass region in early June, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday.

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators were reportedly near a peace deal at talks hosted by Türkiyein March 2022, a little more than a month after the conflict began. “After we pulled troops back from Kiev, as we promised,”Ukrainian leaders “threw it all away, into the garbage dump of history,”Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with African leaders in July.

Reuters/RT