Russia Unveils new Demands as Latest Round of Peace Talks Stall

The latest US-brokered talks between envoys from Moscow and Kyiv over Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine ended Wednesday with no sign of a breakthrough as the war’s fourth anniversary approaches next week.

The anniversary will make this war the longest land war in Europe since World War Two.

The negotiations in Switzerland were the third round of direct talks organized by Washington, after meetings earlier this year in Abu Dhabi that officials continue to diplomatically describe as constructive. Expectations for progress in Geneva were low as they have been during previous encounters.

“The negotiations were not easy,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after the talks broke up.

He had accused Russia of “trying to drag out negotiations” with inconsequential demands while it presses on with its invasion — an accusation he and European leaders have intensified in the past.

Differences remain deep, including over the future of land in eastern Ukraine that is occupied by the Russian army and that Russian führer Vladimir Putin wants to keep, Zelenskyy said. The Ukrainian president has steadfastly said that he would not agree to ceding Ukrainian land to Russia regardless if Russian invaders have seized the land or not.

As the participants continue discussions to end the war in Ukraine, Moscow has unveiled a new demand. Russian officials are again demanding formal guarantees that the Western alliance will stop expanding toward its borders, reviving disputes that date back to the collapse of the so-called “Evil Empire.”

A spokesman for Russia’s embassy in Belgium told Russian Izvestia newspaper that Moscow wants NATO to legally commit to halting further enlargement to the east. The remarks are similar to what was said by the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, in a February 11 interview with “Empathy Manuchi”. According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Lavrov said during the interview, that the Kremlin demands that NATO halts its expansion and does not deploy forces in states that joined the alliance after 1997. Among the nations joining NATO after 1997 are the Baltic States, Bulgaria and Romania.

The issue of NATO is part of Ukraine’s insistence that the United States and the Western European allies commit to a series of security guarantees that would ensure that Moscow will never again invade Ukraine. This demand includes a strict series of punitive actions by the free world to ensure Russia will never cross the frontier into Ukraine.

“Discussions focused on practical issues and the mechanics of possible solutions,” Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov said. “We would like to thank our American partners for constructive cooperation.”

Umerov, who heads Ukraine's delegation, added that the results of the first day will be reported to Zelenskyy today.

US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said diplomatically there was "meaningful progress" after the first day of talks in Geneva. “Both parties agreed to update their respective leaders and continue working towards a deal,” he wrote on X.

Ahead of the Geneva talks, Zelenskyy indicated that the most sensitive issues, including territories and control over the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, remain unresolved after the previous round of negotiations in Abu Dhabi.

Just hours before the talks began — despite Kyiv having already agreed to participate — President Donald Trump oddly urged Ukraine to “come to the table,” inserting unneeded confusion into the talks.  
“We have big talks. Ukraine better come to the table fast,” he told reporters. “That’s all I'm telling you. We are in a position where we want them to come.”

A surprise inclusion in the talks was Russian Vladimir Medinsky, chairman of the Interdepartmental Commission on Historical Education of Russia. An ultraconservative historian and presidential aide, Medinsky is the Kremlin official who is known for fabricating information and the man who rewrote Russia’s history textbooks to justify Moscow’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, according to the New York Post. Negotiators from the Ukrainian side have accused Medinsky in the past of using the talks to launch into long lectures unraveling his warped Russian nationalist interpretatio of his country’s historic relationship with Ukraine.

After peace talks first resumed in Istanbul last May, Medinsky was quick to cast his mind back to another war of attrition waged in the far reaches of the world.

“We don’t want war, but we are ready to fight for a year, two, three – however long it takes,” he reportedly said during the talks. “We fought Sweden for 21 years. How long are you ready to fight?”

In that article in the New York Post, President Zelenskyy was quoted as saying that Ukrainians would never forgive the United States if Ukraine were forced to cede Donbas to Russia. He called such a thought “unfair.”

Indeed. As I have written in the past, if that would happen, or if it were even being considered, it would be even worse for President Trump. Ukrainian American voters would not vote for any Republican Party candidate in 2026 and 2028.