Zelensky says diplomacy needs ‘justice and strength’ as Russia, U.S., Ukraine open Geneva talks
GENEVA — Trilateral talks aimed at ending the nearly four-year war in Ukraine were set to begin in Geneva on Monday as a Russian delegation led by nationalist historian and former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky arrived in the Swiss city around 6 a.m., according to a member of the Russian team.
- Advertisement -
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky framed the diplomatic push as inseparable from sustained pressure on Moscow, saying talks would be more effective with “justice and strength.” In a social media post, he called for the “strength of pressure on the Russian Federation — sanctions pressure and steady, rapid support for the Ukrainian army and our air defence.”
Russia, Ukraine and the United States are participating in the Geneva meetings. Moscow has stuck to demands for sweeping territorial and political concessions, conditions Kyiv rejects as tantamount to capitulation.
One key flashpoint is the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia is pressing for a Ukrainian pullout. Ukrainian forces still control roughly one-fifth of the region, and Kyiv has ruled out a unilateral withdrawal. Ukrainian officials say any ceasefire must be underpinned by robust Western security guarantees to deter a renewed Russian offensive.
The talks come as Russian strikes have triggered Ukraine’s worst energy crisis of the war, knocking out heat and electricity for hundreds of thousands of homes as temperatures drop as low as minus 20 C. Kyiv has responded with long-range drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, targeting oil and gas facilities that help fund Moscow’s invasion launched in February 2022.
The human cost of the conflict remains staggering. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in Europe’s deadliest war since World War II. Russia currently occupies about one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean Peninsula it seized in 2014 and areas held by Moscow-backed separatists before the full-scale invasion.
Any path to a durable settlement in Geneva will have to reconcile those battlefield realities with maximalist political demands. Ukraine is seeking a framework that locks in military aid and air-defense support while shoring up its grid against deepening winter outages. Russia has shown little sign of softening its position on territorial claims or Ukraine’s political alignment.
For Washington and European partners, the process is a test of whether sanctions pressure and sustained military assistance can translate into leverage at the table. For Kyiv, it is also a race against time to stabilize critical infrastructure and blunt further strikes as temperatures plunge.
Delegations did not immediately outline a timetable or agenda beyond the opening exchanges, and expectations for a rapid breakthrough remain low. Still, the decision to sit down in Geneva signals a tentative opening after months of intensified attacks and counterstrikes that have redrawn neither the front lines nor the core demands of either side.
Whether “justice and strength,” as Zelensky put it, can produce momentum in Geneva will depend on more than statements. It will turn on the endurance of Western support, the severity of sanctions on Russia’s war economy, and the willingness of negotiators to test incremental steps — such as verifiable ceasefire arrangements — without ceding ground on fundamental principles of sovereignty and security.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
