Russia\u2019s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky says further negotiations will be held soon
\n Kyiv
\nPeace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Geneva ended on Wednesday after only two hours, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy describing them as \u201cdifficult\u201d and accusing Russia of deliberately delaying progress toward a deal to end the four-year-old war.
\nThe two days of US-mediated peace talks in Switzerland took place as US President Donald Trump has twice in recent days suggested it was up to Ukraine and Zelenskiy to ensure the talks were successful.
\n\u201cWe can see that progress has been made, but for now, positions differ because the negotiations were difficult,\u201d Zelenskiy told reporters in a WhatsApp chat shortly after talks concluded.
\nRustem Umerov, the head of Kyiv\u2019s negotiating team, said separately that the second day had been \u201cintensive and substantive\u201d. Both sides were working toward decisions that can be sent to their presidents, he said.
\nRussia\u2019s chief negotiator, former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, told reporters that further negotiations would be held soon, without specifying a date. Earlier on Wednesday, Zelenskiy had accused Russia of \u201ctrying to drag out negotiations that could already have reached the final stage\u201d.
\nUkrainian officials have routinely accused Moscow\u2013which has carried out a winter bombing campaign against Ukraine\u2019s energy system and pursued its battlefield offensive\u2013of negotiating in bad faith.
\nPressure from Trump
\nIn an interview with US website Axios published on Tuesday, Zelenskiy was quoted as saying that it was \u201cnot fair\u201d Trump kept publicly calling on Ukraine, not Russia, to make concessions in negotiating terms for a peace plan.
\nTrump had told reporters on Monday that \u201cUkraine better come to the table fast. That\u2019s all I\u2019m telling you.\u201d
\nZelenskiy also said any plan requiring Ukraine to give up territory that Russia had not captured in the eastern Donbas region would be rejected by Ukrainians if put to a referendum.
\n\u201cI hope it is just his tactics and not the decision,\u201d Axios quoted Zelenskiy as saying in the interview.
\nPush for European involvement
\nThe talks came just days before the fourth anniversary of Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of its much smaller neighbour. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, millions have fled their homes, and many Ukrainian cities, towns and villages have been devastated by the conflict.
\nRussia denies deliberately targeting civilians.
\nUmerov said on Tuesday that the first day of talks had focused on \u201cpractical issues and the mechanics of possible decisions,\u201d without providing details. However, Russian news agencies quoted a source as saying that the Tuesday talks were \u201cvery tense\u201d and lasted six hours in different bilateral and trilateral formats.
\nUkrainian government bonds fell as much as 1.9 cents on the dollar in morning trade in Europe on reports of stalled progress at the talks.
\nBefore the talks began, Umerov had played down hopes for a significant step forward in Geneva, saying the Ukrainian delegation was working \u201cwithout excessive expectations\u201d.
\nThe Geneva meeting follows two rounds of US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi that concluded without a major breakthrough as the two sides remained far apart on key issues such as the control of territory in eastern Ukraine.
\nRussia occupies about 20% of Ukraine\u2019s national territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region, which it seized before the 2022 full-scale invasion. Its recent airstrikes on energy infrastructure have left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without heating and power during a harsh winter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russia\u2019s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky says further negotiations will be held soon Kyiv Peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Geneva ended on Wednesday after only two hours, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy describing them as \u201cdifficult\u201d and accusing Russia of deliberately delaying progress toward a deal to end the four-year-old war. The two days of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-532145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n