Russia and Ukraine have agreed to "ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea," the Trump administration said Tuesday, claiming a limited advance in efforts to broker a peace deal between the two countries.

The agreements were announced in separate statements by the White House after U.S. officials held separate bilateral talks with Ukrainian and Russian delegations this week in Riyadh.

The details of talks between the U.S. and Russia that took place in Saudi Arabia on Monday will not be made public, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

"After all, this is about technical talks," Peskov said, as quoted by Russia's state-run Tass news agency. The discussions, he added, went "into details so, certainly, the content of these talks will not be made public for sure. This is something that should not be expected."

As high-level delegations from the U.S. and Russia arrive in Saudi Arabia for the second round of bilateral talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, Moscow’s envoys will have one goal on their mind: buying time.

For the Kremlin, dragging out peace negotiations for as long as possible is imperative for seizing as much Ukrainian territory as it can and getting an upper hand over Kyiv in relations with the U.S., as Moscow isn’t capable of making these battlefield advances quickly, four sources familiar with the Kremlin’s thinking told The Moscow Times. 

A Ukrainian rocket attack killed six people, including three Russian state media workers, in eastern Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Luhansk region, according to Russian news organisations and officials.

The attack on Monday killed war correspondent Alexander Fedorchak, a journalist from Russia’s main pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper, as well as a camera operator, Andrei Panov, who worked for Russian television channel Zvezda, and the channel’s driver, Alexander Sirkeli, the Moscow-appointed governor of the Luhansk region, Leonid Pasechnik, said.

Ukrainian and U.S. delegations are scheduled to meet on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia following Russia-U.S. talks there a day earlier on a limited Black Sea ceasefire proposal that Washington hopes will open the way for broader peace negotiations.

Day-long talks on Monday in Saudi Arabia between Russian and U.S. officials were portrayed by Washington as a step in President Donald Trump's effort to end the three-year-old war.

U.S. and Russian officials began talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday aimed at making progress towards a broad ceasefire in Ukraine with Washington eyeing a separate Black Sea maritime ceasefire deal before securing a wider agreement.

The talks, which followed U.S. negotiations with Ukraine in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, come as U.S. President Donald Trump intensifies his drive to end the three-year-old conflict after he last week spoke to both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A State Department spokesperson said Thursday that Ukraine and Russia are “just a breath away from a full ceasefire” after three years of war.

“We are just a breath away from a full ceasefire, and then we can begin to talk about not just peace for a week or six months, but an enduring peace that the people of Ukraine and Russia and the world can rely on, and that is what America has helped facilitate, and that’s what we’re continuing to do each day,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told anchor Nichole Berlie on “NewsNation Now.”

Hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to stop targeting Ukrainian energy and infrastructure on Tuesday, Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of air strikes on civilian infrastructure. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia launched more than 40 drones and targeted hospitals. Early Wednesday, Ukrainian state railway company Ukrzaliznytsya said parts of the railway had been left without electricity following a Russian drone attack.