Talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials in Geneva on Tuesday were “very tense,” a source close to the Russian delegation told reporters.
The anonymous source, speaking to AFP and other outlets, said that despite the fraught session, the trilateral negotiations aimed at ending the war will continue Wednesday as planned.
“They were very tense. They lasted six hours. They have now concluded,” the source said of the talks. “It has been agreed to continue tomorrow [Wednesday],” the source added.
The closed-door discussions follow two earlier rounds in Abu Dhabi. While a prisoner exchange was agreed in the last round, the framework for a broader peace deal acceptable to both sides remains uncertain.
Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s lead negotiator, had said the new session would focus on “security issues and humanitarian matters.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian delegates in Switzerland planned to address the “main issues” regarding “territories and everything else related to the demands we have put forward.”
The Russian delegation is led by Kremlin aide and hawk Vladimir Medinsky, who also took part in Istanbul talks last year.
Kyiv has repeatedly criticized Medinsky for lengthy historical digressions that stalled negotiations.
President Volodymyr Zelensky described his comments last week as “a historical briefing from a playbook that everyone has heard many times before.”
The rest of Moscow’s delegation includes more than a dozen officials, including Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin and GRU-linked officials.
The Kremlin wants Ukrainian troops to withdraw from the roughly 20% of the Donetsk region that is still under Kyiv’s control as part of any peace deal, territory Russia has been unable to conquer in nearly 12 years of war.
Kyiv has rejected this and insisted on firm security guarantees from the West before agreeing to any peace proposals.
However, European and senior US officials told Politico last week that Washington has made clear it will not finalize security guarantees until a comprehensive agreement is reached.
Speaking to the Washington Post, one person close to the talks said of the Russians: “It does seem like they want peace. But they want peace only on their terms.”
“Everyone is saying how productive the talks are, but in fact, everything has come to a halt,” they added. “We have agreed what we have managed to agree, and nothing progresses further.”
The news came as President Zelensky gave an interview to Axios on Tuesday, saying that any territorial breakthrough would require a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin.
He told the outlet that he had asked his team to raise the possibility of a future leader-level session in Geneva.
Zelensky added that US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have assured him that Russia truly wants to end the war, and that his negotiating team should factor that into discussions.
Still, the Ukrainian president said he is skeptical and has advised them not to push him into presenting a vision of peace that his people would see as an “unsuccessful story.”
Regarding US President Donald Trump’s Monday comments that Ukraine must “come to the table, fast,” Zelensky said: “I hope it is just his tactics and not the decision.”
“We respect each other,” he said, adding that his private conversations with envoys don’t entail the kind of pressure that is applied on Kyiv in public.