Ukrainian and Russian negotiators were to resume a second round of US-mediated peace talks in Geneva on Wednesday, though neither side signalled they were any closer to ending Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
The talks are the latest diplomatic bid to halt the fighting which has left hundreds of thousands killed, millions forced to flee and much of eastern and southern Ukraine decimated.
The United States has been pushing for an end to the nearly four-year war, but has failed to broker a compromise between Moscow and Kyiv on the key issue of territory.
Two previous rounds of negotiation between the two sides in Abu Dhabi failed to yield a breakthrough.
The latest talks “were very tense”, a source close to the Russian delegation told AFP.
“They lasted six hours. They have now concluded,” the source said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address he was ready “to move quickly towards a worthy agreement to end the war”, but questioned whether Russia was serious about peace.
“What do they want?” he added, accusing them of prioritising missile strikes over “real diplomacy”.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022, with the ensuing conflict resulting in a tidal wave of destruction that has left entire cities in ruins.
‘Come to the table, fast’ –
Zelensky has repeatedly said his country is being asked to make disproportionate compromises compared to Russia.
US President Donald Trump put pressure on Ukraine on Monday to make a deal, saying they “better come to the table, fast”.
Zelensky told Axios on Tuesday it was “not fair” that Trump kept calling on Ukraine to broker a deal, adding that lasting peace would not be achieved if “victory” was just handed to Russia.
“I hope it is just his tactics and not the decision,” Zelensky said.
Russia occupies around one-fifth of Ukraine — including the Crimean peninsula it seized in 2014 — and areas that Moscow-backed separatists had taken prior to the 2022 invasion.
It is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region as part of any deal, and has threatened to take it by force if talks fail.
But Kyiv has rejected this deeply unpopular demand, which would be politically and militarily fraught, and signalled it will not sign a deal without security guarantees that deter Russia from invading again.
Russia has been slowly seizing territory across the sprawling front line for months.
But its war-time economic worries are mounting, with growth stagnating and a ballooning budget deficit as oil revenues — choked by sanctions — drop to a five-year low.
Ukrainian forces recently made their fastest gains in two-and-a-half years, recapturing 201 square kilometres (78 square miles) last week, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War.
That total includes areas Kyiv and military analysts say are controlled by Russia (72 square kilometres), as well as those claimed by Moscow’s army (129 square kilometres).
The counterattacks likely leveraged the disruption of Russian forces’ access to Starlink, the ISW said, after the satellite internet firm’s boss, Elon Musk, announced “measures” to end Russia’s use of the technology.
– Breakthrough hopes low –
For the talks in Geneva, the Kremlin reinstated nationalist hawk and former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky as its lead negotiator.
Ukrainian national security secretary Rustem Umerov was leading Kyiv’s side.
Hopes for a breakthrough are low.
Even before the talks were underway, Ukraine had accused Russia of undermining peace efforts by launching 29 missiles and 396 drones in a series of attacks overnight into Tuesday that authorities said killed at least four people, wounded others and cut power to tens of thousands in southern Ukraine.
A Russian drone strike early Tuesday killed three staff of a power plant in the frontline town of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine, according to energy minister Denys Shmygal.
Another person was killed in the northeastern Sumy region, local officials said.
Late Tuesday Ukraine’s general staff said Russia had fired 28 missiles and 109 guided aerial bombs at its territory since the beginning of the day.
“The extent to which Russia disregards peace efforts: a massive missile and drone strike against Ukraine right before the next round of talks in Geneva,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga wrote on social media.
Russia meanwhile accused Ukraine of launching more than 150 drones overnight into Tuesday, mainly over southern regions and the Crimean peninsula — occupied by the Kremlin in 2014.
An oil depot in southern Russia caught fire, according to officials.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists to expect no major news from the first day of talks.
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