Ukraine-Russia war latest: ‘Difficult’ peace talks end in under two hours after Zelensky slams ‘unfair’ Trump

As Ukraine claimed a string of victories in the southeast, Emil Kastehelmi, military analyst with Finland-based open-source intelligence collective Black Bird Group, told The Independent that the latest figures may not represent a strategic shift, but could offer some political relief in talks:

Ukraine officials will boycott the Milano Cortina Paralympics next month over the participation of a handful of Russian and Belarusian athletes.

Ukrainian athletes will still take part in the March 6-15 Paralympic Games but Ukraine's Sports Minister Matvii Bidnyi said no Ukraine official would be at the opening ceremony or any event of the Games.

Russia and Belarus will have a combined 10 para athletes at next month's Paralympics following Tuesday's decision by the International Paralympic Committee to allow them to compete under their flag.

The second day of talks between Russia and Ukraine concluded within two hours this morning, following a six hour discussion on Tuesday.

The head of the Ukrainian delegation said that there was progress, and Zelensky told reporters that Kyiv had agreed to continue talks.

In Geneva, lead Ukrainian diplomat Rustem Umerov emerged confident that negotiations were “substantive” and that “a number of issues were clarified”.

Zelensky told reporters: "We can see that progress has been made but, for now, positions differ because the negotiations were difficult.”

Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s top negotiator, said the talks had been difficult but business-like, and that a new round of talks would be held soon.

"The negotiations lasted two days: a very long time yesterday in various formats, and then about two hours today," Medinsky, a senior Kremlin aide, told reporters in Geneva.

Russia and Ukraine have now concluded two days of talks.

Ukraine's lead negotiator Rustem Umerov, the head of the National Security and Defence Council, emerged from the conversations yesterday saying they had focused on "practical issues and the mechanics of possible decisions”.

Russian officials made no initial comments on the talks.

However, Russian news agencies quoted a source as saying that the talks were "very tense" and lasted six hours in different bilateral and trilateral formats.

Wednesday saw another two hours of conversation. Both sides said they expected more would follow at a later date.

Before this week’s talks began, Umerov played down hopes for a significant step forward in Geneva, saying the Ukrainian delegation was working "without excessive expectations".

The Kremlin said previously that the central issue of land would be in focus.

The Geneva meeting follows two rounds of U.S.-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.

Ukraine was finally able to reduce reliance on power imports last week as the bitter winter cold relented, with Russian attacks on energy infrastructure still straining the war-weary nation.

"This is the first decline in weekly import volumes in the last five weeks,” analyst DixiGroup said late on Tuesday, announcing an import reduction of three per cent.

“Electricity exports have remained at zero for three months in a row," it said.

Ukrainians suffered record cold conditions in early February, with temperatures in some parts of the country hitting minus 30 degrees Celsius (-22°F) - just as Russian attacks knocked out large parts of the energy network.

The second day of talks between Russia and Ukraine concluded within two hours this morning, following a six hour discussion on Tuesday.

The head of the Ukrainian delegation said that there was progress, and Zelensky told reporters that Kyiv had agreed to continue talks.

In Geneva, the lead Ukrainian diplomat emerged confident that negotiations were “substantive” and that “a number of issues were clarified”.

Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s top negotiator, said the talks had been difficult but business-like, and that a new round of talks would be held soon.

"The negotiations lasted two days: a very long time yesterday in various formats, and then about two hours today," Medinsky, a senior Kremlin aide, told reporters in Geneva.

Anti-corruption investigators in Ukraine announced Operation Midas last November as they identified a large-scale corruption scheme in the country’s energy sector.

Several high profile arrests have followed, but the country still has a long way to go to rid itself entirely of corruption, experts say.

Here’s what Midas means for Ukraine:

Russia is not only attacking the Ukrainian people, but also the American taxpayer, according to Kyiv’s foreign minister.

Andrii Sybiha wrote on social media that Russia has been “intentionally” striking US businesses in Ukraine, including the Boeing office in Kyiv, the Flex plant in Mukachevo, and the Bunge facility in Dnipro.

“Moscow claims it seeks a "business-first" relationship with the US, but attacking your ‘partner's’ factories hardly constitutes a ‘partnership’,” he argued.

“These strikes demonstrate that the Kremlin's seemingly lucrative proposals of economic cooperation are, in fact, nothing more than a 'Potemkin village' meant to buy time while dismantling American influence in Europe.”

Volodymyr Zelensky announced this morning that Ukraine had slapped Belarus’ longtime dictator with new sanctions.

He said: “Alexander Lukashenko has long been trading Belarus’s sovereignty for the continuation of his personal power, helping Russians circumvent global sanctions for this aggression, actively justifying Russia’s war, and now further increasing his own participation in scaling and prolonging the war. There will be special consequences for this.”

Zelensky said Ukraine would “significantly intensify countermeasures” against Lukashenko with help from unnamed partners to ensure a “global effect”, without specifying details.