Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev stated that Washington "is beginning to better understand" the importance of Russian oil following "productive talks" with American negotiators on the Ukrainian conflict. The meetings were held in Florida without Ukrainian representatives.

Dmitriev posted on Telegram that the talks were constructive: "We discussed promising initiatives that could help restore Russian-American relations and address the current global crisis in the energy market."

Just a few hours later, the US issued a 30-day permit to buy Russian oil and petroleum products at sea, with the aim of stabilizing energy markets disrupted by Middle Eastern tensions. Russia earned 6 billion euros from fossil fuel sales in the first two weeks of the US-Iran conflict alone.

On peripheral discussion topics: Hungary returned two seized armored banking vehicles to Ukraine, but retained cash and gold worth millions of euros, citing money laundering investigations. Kyiv condemned this as theft.