Russia and Ukraine will hold U.S.-brokered talks on Feb. 17-18 in Geneva, the next step in negotiations aimed at ending the four-year war, both governments said.
The discussions, in a trilateral Russia-U.S.-Ukraine format, follow two U.S.-mediated rounds in Abu Dhabi that produced no sign of a breakthrough even as President Donald Trump pushes to end the conflict.
- Advertisement -
Despite public assurances that earlier meetings were productive, Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on the core issue of territory. “The next round of talks on the Ukrainian settlement will be held in the same trilateral Russia-U.S.-Ukraine format, on February 17-18 in Geneva,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited as saying by Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
Moscow has stuck to demands for sweeping territorial and political concessions from Ukraine — terms Kyiv has rejected as tantamount to capitulation. Russia is pressing for a Ukrainian pullout from the eastern Donetsk region, where Ukrainian forces still hold roughly one-fifth of the territory.
Ukraine has ruled out a unilateral pullback and is seeking robust Western security guarantees to deter Russia from resuming offensive operations after any cease-fire. That sequencing — territorial control versus security assurances — remains the central fault line undermining efforts to shape a credible roadmap.
In a personnel shift underscoring Moscow’s approach, Peskov said Russia’s delegation in Geneva will be led by Vladimir Medinsky, a hawkish former culture minister who headed earlier failed talks in Turkey. That marks a change from the senior military officials who fronted the two previous rounds in Abu Dhabi.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians, making it Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II. Russia currently occupies about one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory, including the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized in 2014, and areas held by Moscow-backed separatists prior to the 2022 invasion.
While both sides have signaled willingness to keep talking, neither has indicated readiness to compromise on the pivotal questions of land and long-term security architecture. Geneva will test whether U.S. mediation can bridge that divide after two fruitless attempts in the Gulf.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
