Geneva, Feb 18: Delegations from Moscow and Kyiv were in Geneva on Tuesday for another round of US-brokered peace talks, a week before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour.However, expectations for any breakthroughs in Geneva were low, with neither side apparently ready to budge from its positions on key territorial issues and future security guarantees, despite the United States setting a June deadline for a settlement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his government’s delegation was in Switzerland and Russian state news agency Tass said the Russian delegation had also arrived.
Discussions on the future of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory are expected to be particularly tough as US President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, sit down with the delegations. That’s according to a person familiar with the talks who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorised to talk to reporters.
Russa is still insisting that Ukraine cede control of its eastern Donbas region.
Also in Geneva will be American, Russian and Ukrainian military chiefs, who will discuss how a ceasefire monitoring might work after any peace deal, and what’s needed to implement it, the person said.
During previous talks in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, military leaders looked at how a demilitarized zone could be arranged and how everyone’s militaries could talk to one another, the person added.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov cautioned against expecting developments on the first day of talks as they were set to continue on Wednesday. Moscow has provided few details of previous talks.
Ukraine’s short-handed army is locked in a war of attrition with Russia’s bigger forces along the roughly 1,250-kilometre (750-mile) front line. Ukrainian civilians are enduring Russian aerial barrages that repeatedly knock out power and destroy homes.
The future of the almost 20 per cent of Ukrainian land that Russia occupies or still covets is a central question in the talks, as are Kyiv’s demands for postwar security guarantees with a US backstop to deter Moscow from invading again.
Trump described the Geneva meeting as “big talks.”
“Ukraine better come to the table fast,” he told reporters late Monday as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida.
It wasn’t immediately clear what Trump was referring to in his comment about Ukraine, which has committed to and taken part in negotiations in the hope of ending Russia’s devastating onslaught.