US and Ukraine hold Geneva talks; Russia declares no deadlines

US and Ukrainian & Russia – (Web Desk) – Diplomats from the US and Ukraine in Geneva discuss steps to resolve the ongoing conflict with Russia.US and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva on Thursday to discuss ways to move closer to ending Russia’s four-year invasion of Ukraine, even as Moscow indicated it was in no rush to finalize any agreement.

US President Donald Trump has been pushing to resolve Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II but has not yet succeeded in brokering a deal between Moscow and Kyiv. Previous rounds of US-led talks in Geneva and Abu Dhabi have failed to produce a compromise, particularly on the contentious issue of territorial control.

Russia has insisted it will not give up its claims over Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state media: “Have you heard anything from us about deadlines? We have no deadlines, we have tasks. We are getting them done.”

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Kyiv maintains that the deadlock can only be broken through a direct leaders’ meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky. Thursday’s discussions were intended to prepare the ground for such a summit.

Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said the talks included a bilateral meeting with the American delegation, led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Ukraine aims to align its positions with the US ahead of new trilateral negotiations scheduled for March.

Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev plans to be in Geneva on Thursday, though there is no indication he plans to meet the Ukrainian side, according to Russian state media.

“Dmitriev plans to arrive in Geneva on Thursday to pursue negotiations with the Americans on economic issues,” Russia’s TASS news agency cited an unnamed source as saying.

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Hours before the meeting, Russian forces launched some 420 drones and 39 missiles at Ukraine, wounding more than two dozen people in at least six different regions, according to authorities.

AFP journalists heard several explosions in central Kyiv shortly after authorities warned Russia had launched its attack.

The strikes hit an electricity substation in the southern Odesa region, as well as a school building in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, according to officials.

“Destruction has been recorded in eight regions, with many private homes and apartment buildings damaged,” Zelensky said.

Also ahead of the meeting, Russia announced that it had returned the bodies of 1,000 killed Ukrainian soldiers to Ukraine, while Moscow received 35 Russian bodies in exchange.

The two sides regularly exchange the remains of killed serviceman, one of the few areas of cooperation between the warring countries.

Zelensky spoke with US President Donald Trump on Wednesday ahead of the talks, with US envoys Witkoff and Kushner part of the 30-minute call.

“We expect this meeting (in Geneva) to create an opportunity to move talks to the leaders’ level. President Trump supports this sequence of steps,” Zelensky said.

After first refusing to negotiate with Russia, Zelensky has repeatedly said that the only way of resolving difficult issues, including territory, is through a meeting with Putin.

Talks between Moscow and Kyiv remain deadlocked over the fate of the Donbas — the industrial region in eastern Ukraine that has been the epicentre of the fighting.

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Russia is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, and has threatened to take it by force if Kyiv does not cave at the negotiating table.

But Ukraine has rejected the demand and signalled it would not sign a deal without security guarantees that deter Russia from invading again.