U.S. Tries to Negotiate Black Sea Cease-Fire With Russia, Ukraine

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Black Sea negotiations for the Russia-Ukraine war, the Trump administration’s handling of U.S. national security information, sweeping anti-government protests in Turkey, and South Korea reinstating Prime Minister Han Duck-soo as its acting president.

A Maritime Truce?

Senior U.S. and Russian officials held high-level talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday that were aimed at establishing a Black Sea cease-fire deal. Diplomats hope that the maritime truce would be a stepping stone toward achieving a wider peace agreement in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Ukraine has inflicted significant damage on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since the start of the full-scale conflict in February 2022, but the area has not been the site of intense military operations in recent months. Still, negotiators hope that a Black Sea truce would allow for the free flow of shipping and the potential resumption of the 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative.

“This is primarily about the safety of navigation,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. The initiative was supposed to allow Kyiv to ship millions of tons of grain and other vital food exports from its Black Sea ports. But Moscow withdrew from the deal in 2023 after accusing Western countries of failing to uphold their promises to ease sanctions on Russian produce and fertilizer exports.

The U.S.-Russia talks on Monday came one day after a White House delegation met with Ukrainian officials in Riyadh. The focus of that conversation was a 30-day pause on energy and infrastructure attacks that Russia and Ukraine agreed to in principle last week but have both since violated. On Monday, the Kremlin said that Moscow was abiding by the one-month moratorium even as Kyiv continues to target Russian energy facilities, but Ukraine maintains that Russian strikes have also continued and that Kyiv will only agree to the pause if a formal document is signed.

“A few hours ago, another horrific Russian bombing of Sumy’s city center injured dozens civilians, including many children,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X. “Instead of making hollow statements about peace, Russia must stop bombing our cities and end its war on civilians.”

U.S. officials are set to meet with their Ukrainian counterparts later on Monday for a second round of negotiations after speaking to the Russian team. This appears to have somewhat appeased Ukraine’s European allies, who remain worried that U.S. President Donald Trump is forgoing Washington’s traditional Western partners and instead caving to the Kremlin’s wishes.

Still, Europe remains wary. On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron will host leaders interested in joining the so-called coalition of the willing to formalize a peacekeeping plan in Ukraine that does not rely on U.S. security guarantees. At the same time, European military chiefs are drawing up a long-term proposal for the continent’s safety that does not include the United States. The leaders intend to present the plan ahead of the next NATO summit in June.

Today’s Most Read

• Don’t Give Up on China’s Democracy Just Yet by Neal E. Robbins
• How Big Does Donald Trump Think Greenland Is? by Nick Danforth
• What the Western Media Gets Wrong About Taiwan by Clarissa Wei

What We’re Following

“Houthi PC small group.” Several U.S. national security officials and members of Trump’s cabinet accidentally texted confidential war plans to Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of the Atlantic, the magazine reported on Monday. According to Goldberg, U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz added him to a group chat on the messaging app Signal. Goldberg said that the group appeared to include Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, and several other officials who were assembled to discuss an impending U.S. attack on the Yemen-based Houthi militant group.

The group chat, titled “Houthi PC small group,” discussed operational details on a forthcoming strike in Yemen, including information about targets, weaponry, and attack sequencing. None of the users appeared to notice that a non-Trump administration member was in the chat.

The incident has raised alarm bells about the administration’s handling of national security information. “Every single one of the government officials on this text chain have now committed a crime—even if accidentally,” Sen. Chris Coons wrote on X in a since-deleted post, likely alluding to the possibility that Waltz or others may have violated provisions of the Espionage Act. “We can’t trust anyone in this dangerous administration to keep Americans safe,” Coons added.

National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes confirmed the group chat’s legitimacy. However, when asked Monday afternoon about the report, Trump said, “I don’t know anything about it. … You’re telling me about it for the first time.”

Opposition crackdown. Turkish authorities have detained more than 1,100 people since mass anti-government protests erupted last Wednesday, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Monday. Ankara will not allow “the terrorizing of the streets,” Yerlikaya said, adding that some 123 police officers have been injured so far. According to Turkey’s Journalists’ Union, those detained include at least nine journalists who were covering the protests.

The demonstrations—likely Turkey’s largest in more than a decade—are in response to Ankara detaining more than 100 opposition figures, including Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, last week on allegations of corruption and collaborating with a terrorist group. Many have since called for Imamoglu’s release, saying that he was detained on politically motivated charges; Imamoglu was confirmed as the presidential candidate for the opposition Republican People’s Party from his jail cell on Sunday.

Pro-democracy activists warn that the latest slew of arrests is a sign of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian tactics. Due to term limits, Erdogan is not allowed to run for reelection in 2028 unless he changes the constitution or calls for an early vote, which experts believe he is likely to do.

Back in office. South Korea’s Constitutional Court reinstated impeached Prime Minister Han Duck-soo as the country’s acting president on Monday, overturning his impeachment in a 7-1 ruling. Han took over as the acting leader in December 2024 after then-President Yoon Suk-yeol made a short-lived martial law order that ultimately led to his impeachment and arrest. Han was then also impeached only two weeks after assuming the temporary office.

“There’s no left or right. What matters is the advancement of our nation,” Han said following his reinstatement. While the verdict does not necessarily signal how the court may vote in Yoon’s upcoming case, it has ignited a sense of optimism among the impeached leader’s supporters.

The Constitutional Court is expected to rule on Yoon’s case later this month, though no date has been announced. If the court upholds his impeachment and removes him from office, then the country must hold a presidential election within 60 days.

New truce proposal. Egypt has proposed a new Gaza cease-fire deal that both Hamas and the United States have agreed to, Reuters reported on Monday. Israel had yet to respond. The new agreement would require Hamas to release five Israeli hostages each week if Israel agrees to implement the second phase of the recently expired truce deal after the first week. Phase two of the original agreement called for the creation of a permanent truce and Israeli forces withdrawing from Gaza.

Senior Hamas officials have said that the group aims to return to the previous cease-fire deal, which ended earlier this month when the first phase expired without the details of the second phase having been agreed to. Israeli forces then launched a large-scale attack on Gaza that killed more than 400 Palestinians in one day. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have returned to a policy of insisting on “total victory” over Hamas, with Israeli strikes killing dozens of Palestinians each day. Hamas has also resumed rocket attacks on Israel in recent days.

Israel’s security cabinet approved a new proposal on Sunday that would facilitate “voluntary transfer for Gaza residents who express interest in moving to third countries,” in line with Trump’s controversial Gaza displacement plan. Netanyahu confirmed on Monday that a government agency would be established to oversee the policy. Critics maintain that mass displacement would amount to ethnic cleansing.

The World This Week

Tuesday, March 25: Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court begins a two-day hearing to consider whether to proceed with a case accusing former President Jair Bolsonaro of attempting to orchestrate a coup.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa host Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Brussels.

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko is sworn in for a seventh term.

Wednesday, March 26: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hosts Juan Esteban Lazo Hernández, the president of Cuba’s National Assembly, in Moscow.

Thursday, March 27: A U.S. delegation, including second lady Usha Vance, begins a three-day trip to Greenland.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva concludes a four-day trip to Japan and begins a three-day trip to Vietnam.

Friday, March 28: Chinese President Xi Jinping hosts Muhammad Yunus, the chief advisor of Bangladesh’s interim government, in Beijing.

Macron hosts Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Paris.

Odds and Ends

This year’s White House Easter Egg Roll may see the Easter Bunny sporting corporate logos. For the first time since the event’s founding in 1878, the White House is seeking sponsorship offers from $75,000 to $200,000, according to a nine-page document obtained by CNN on Sunday. Ethics experts warn that this could violate long-established guidelines intended to prohibit using public office for private gain.