As U.S. brokers new Ukraine-Russia talks, Zelenksyy says attack shows Putin “disregards peace efforts”

Kyiv — Negotiators from Russia and Ukraine engaged Tuesday in a third round of U.S.-mediated peace talks, but there was little hope of any imminent breakthrough on a deal to end the deadliest war on European soil in 80 years.

The negotiators sat down in Geneva a week before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was set to enter its fifth year.

Expectations for the negotiations in Switzerland were low because Kyiv and Moscow remain a long way apart on two fundamental issues: Russia’s demand to be granted internationally recognized ownership of occupied territory in eastern Ukraine, and what measures are put in place for Kyiv’s Western partners — most importantly the U.S. — to guarantee its security going forward once a ceasefire is implemented.

Russia currently controls around 20% of Ukrainian land, but over almost four years of grinding war, those territorial gains are thought to have cost Russia over a million casualties. 

Despite that huge cost, Putin has refused to budge on his demand that a huge swath of eastern Ukraine be formally handed over to Russia as part of any peace deal. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been consistent in rejecting such a sacrifice to end the war. He posted on social media as recently as Monday that it would be a “big mistake to allow the aggressor to take something.”

He’s been backed up on that point by a number of European leaders and the head of NATO, but the Trump administration has at times pushed Ukraine to accept some territorial concession to achieve a peace deal.

Ukraine, which was first invaded by Russia in 2014, eight years before Putin ordered the full-scale assault on Feb. 24, 2022, wants its partners in Washington and Europe to commit to preventing any further Russian assaults — even as the current one shows no signs of letting up despite the diplomacy taking place in Geneva. 

Ukraine’s air force said Tuesday that Russia launched 396 drones and 29 missiles overnight. It said 25 of the missiles and 367 of the drones were intercepted, but Zelenskyy pointed to the latest attack as further evidence that Moscow “disregards peace efforts.”

“Strength of pressure on the Russian Federation — sanctions pressure and steady, rapid support for the Ukrainian army and our air defense,” would be needed to back up the diplomacy, he said in a social media post.

The war launched by Putin nearly four years ago has forced millions of Ukrainians from their homes and killed around 15,000 civilians, according to the United Nations. 

This winter, the weather in Ukraine has been particularly harsh, with temperatures well below zero, and part of Russia’s strategy has been to strike Ukraine’s power grid, leaving civilians with a disrupted supply of electricity and heat in the freezing conditions.