President Volodymyr Zelensky has told world leaders at the United Nations that Ukraine is ready for a maritime truce in the Black Sea — and put the ball firmly in Russia's court. Speaking at Ukraine's Crimean Platform summit on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, Zelensky said the offer was built on proposals outlined by Egypt, India and Turkey to restore safe navigation for merchant shipping.
"We are waiting for Russia's response. Ukraine is ready ... to ensure safe shipping and food security in the Black Sea if Russia is ready to take real steps towards de-escalation too. We have to start somewhere," the Ukrainian president said.
The remarks came just hours before Zelensky was expected to address the UN General Assembly itself, and ahead of a Security Council session on Russia's war against Ukraine, now in its fifth year.
A sea lane brought to a near standstill
Cargo movements through the Black Sea are at a near standstill, according to Zelensky, as both sides have attacked ships and port infrastructure. The disruption has had a global cost: top wheat importers across Asia, the Middle East and Africa that depend on the Black Sea corridor are struggling to secure supplies, and global wheat prices have soared.
Kyiv has been pressing for limited ceasefires covering attacks on energy infrastructure and on shipping for months. Ukrainian officials say Russia plans to pound the country's power and heating facilities with missiles and drones this winter — a campaign Kyiv believes Moscow is preparing right now.
Zelensky's maritime offer follows a parallel diplomatic track on energy targets. The president met US President Donald Trump in New York on Tuesday, and said they had discussed a potential ceasefire on strikes against each other's energy facilities — a proposal Trump himself has publicly floated.
Washington talks, Moscow stays silent
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday that both Russia and Ukraine had expressed interest in a limited ceasefire involving grain and energy. The Kremlin, however, has not publicly backed the proposals.
Ahead of the Lavrov-Rubio meeting, the Kremlin said there were no grounds for wider Ukraine peace talks, while claiming it remained open to them. "For now, there are no prerequisites for moving on to a peaceful negotiating track, although we, as the Russian side, remain open to peace talks," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Zelensky said on Tuesday that he would be ready to meet Vladimir Putin at a trilateral meeting with Trump — a sign that Kyiv, unlike Moscow, is at least willing to test diplomacy. But on sanctions there was no ambiguity: Zelensky wrote this week that easing pressure on Russia is out of the question while Ukrainians live under daily missile and drone attacks.
Kyiv's sea-drone war keeps biting
Ukraine is making the offer from a position of strength at sea, not weakness. In early September, Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces struck Russia's naval base at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea coast. The unit's commander, Robert "Magyar" Brovdi, said the attack destroyed Russian military vessels, including missile carriers — another humiliation for the Black Sea Fleet, which has already been driven from much of the western Black Sea by Ukraine's naval drones.
Novorossiysk is Russia's key oil export terminal in the Black Sea, and Ukraine has targeted it repeatedly over the past year to cut the revenues that fund Putin's war machine. Those strikes, combined with the relentless campaign against Russian refineries — hit on average once every three days in the first eight months of 2026, according to the International Energy Agency — have left Moscow's energy sector reeling.
Kyiv's logic is transparent: it will talk about a truce at sea, but only a real halt in Russian attacks will earn one. As Zelensky put it, Ukraine is ready to ensure safe shipping and food security — if Russia is ready to take real steps towards de-escalation too.
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