Russia’s demand for sanctions relief thrusts the EU into the talks, with tough choices: Euronews

As a condition to restore the Black Sea Initiative, Russia has demanded that Rosselkhozbank be re-connected to SWIFT, which falls under EU jurisdiction, Euronews reports.

 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has spent recent weeks telling Europeans, vexed at their exclusion from the ongoing negotiations to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, that they would be invited to the table when the time came to discuss the future of sanctions.

 

That invitation might arrive sooner than Brussels had expected.

 

After a new round of talks in Saudi Arabia, the US announced that Russia and Ukraine had committed to implementing a partial ceasefire on “energy facilities”, falling well short of the broad ceasefire that Donald Trump had pushed for.

 

The parties also agreed to “ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea,” according to the US readout.

 

Separate read-outs published by the White House listed the main points of the agreement in broad terms, without any footnotes or technical details.

 

But Moscow was quick to spell out its list of demands.