GENEVA – Russian and Ukrainian negotiators were scheduled to meet yesterday in Geneva for fresh US-brokered talks seeking to end the four-year war, hours after both sides launched a fresh wave of long-range strikes.
US president Donald Trump is seeking to position himself as a peacemaker of the conflict unleashed when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, but previous rounds of talks mediated by the White House have yielded no breakthroughs.
Before the meetings began Ukraine accused Russia of undermining peace efforts by launching 29 missiles and 396 drones in attacks that authorities said killed one, wounded others and cut power to tens of thousands.
“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,” Foreign minister Andriy Sybiga wrote on social media.
He repeated Ukraine’s call for allies to exert greater pressure on Russia to negotiate in good faith by applying more sanctions on Moscow.
The talks, which the Kremlin said will be held behind closed doors and with no media present, come after two earlier rounds held this year in Abu Dhabi.
“Ukraine better come to the table, fast,” Trump told reporters ahead of the negotiations.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said his team had already arrived in Geneva on Monday, while a source with the Russian delegation confirmed yesterday that their team had touched down in the Swiss city in the early hours. Russia, meanwhile, claimed to have repelled more than 150 Ukrainian drones mainly over southern regions and the Crimean peninsula, occupied by the Kremlin in 2014.
Officials said an oil depot in southern Russia caught fire.
The war has spiralled into Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, with hundreds of thousands killed, millions forced to flee their homes in Ukraine, and much of the eastern and southern parts of the country scarred by war.
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.
– Nampa/AFP