KYIV, Ukraine (AFP) — Kyiv will propose an aerial and naval ceasefire with Russia during talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia this week, a Ukrainian official told AFP on Monday as President Volodymyr Zelensky was due to arrive in the kingdom.

Those discussions from Tuesday will be the first Ukraine-US meeting since a White House blowup between Zelensky and US President Donald Trump that led to Washington halting military aid to Kyiv.

“We do have a proposal for a ceasefire in the sky and ceasefire at sea,” the official told AFP on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Because these are the ceasefire options that are easy to install and to monitor and it’s possible to start with them.”

Ukrainian and American officials will meet on Tuesday to seek a way out of the conflict more than three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

Zelensky on Monday said Ukraine only wants peace, insisting Russia was the “only reason” the war was carrying on.

“Ukraine has been seeking peace since the very first second of the war, and we have always said that the only reason that the war is continuing is because of Russia,” he wrote on social media.

Zelensky said he would meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto leader, on Monday, after which his officials will meet the American team on Tuesday.

Zelensky has said Ukraine is “fully committed to constructive dialogue”, but wants its interests to be “taken into account in the right way”.

“We hope for results, both in terms of bringing peace closer and continuing support,” he said in his evening address on Sunday.

US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said Washington wanted to use the talks “to get down a framework for a peace agreement and an initial ceasefire as well”.

In Jeddah, the Red Sea port city close to Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, dozens of Ukrainian and Saudi flags flew on a main roundabout near the airport and on thoroughfares.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will fly there on Monday, the US State Department said. Mike Waltz, US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, has also confirmed his participation.

Zelensky said his negotiators will include Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga and Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, his chief of staff Andriy Yermak and Pavlo Palisa, a military commander and Yermak’s deputy.

Washington has suspended military aid to Ukraine as well as intelligence-sharing and access to satellite imagery in a bid to force it to the table with Moscow, which launched its invasion in February 2022 on orders from President Vladimir Putin.