Geneva

Kyiv hopes progress in talks in Geneva will pave the way for a direct meeting between Russian and Ukrainian leaders.

Russia pounded Ukraine with a barrage of missile and drone attacks across the country overnight, wounding at least eight people, in advance of the latest high-level meeting between Kyiv and Washington aimed at ending the war, now in its fifth year.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the latest attacks on the capital in the early hours of Wednesday caused damage to a nine-storey residential building in the Darnytskyi district, and resulted in fires in a home and garages elsewhere in the city.

The strikes on the capital prompted the activation of air defence systems to counter the attack, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration, said, advising residents to remain in shelters until the assault was over. No casualties were reported in the capital.

Ukraine has faced regular overnight barrages as Russia targets cities with missiles and drones in harsh winter conditions in recent months, also targeting civilian energy infrastructure, even amid an ongoing push by Washington to try to negotiate an end to Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

Attacks also took place in the regions of Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk, with officials reporting seven wounded in Kharkiv and another in Kryvyi Rih in Dnipropetrovsk, the AFP news agency reported.

US, Ukrainian delegations to meet

The strikes came before a scheduled meeting in the Swiss city of Geneva between Ukraine’s lead negotiator Rustem Umerov and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, being held in advance of a full session of talks involving Moscow, Kyiv and Washington expected in early March.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday he had spoken with US President Donald Trump before the talks, with Witkoff and Kushner part of the 30-minute call, to discuss the issues that their representatives would cover in Geneva, “as well as preparations for the next meeting of the full negotiating teams in a trilateral format at the very beginning of March”.

Zelenskyy, who has repeatedly sought face-to-face meetings with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to resolve the most challenging issues, said he expected the meeting in Geneva would “create an opportunity to move talks to the leaders’ level”.

“President Trump supports this sequence of steps,” he said. “This is the only way to resolve all the complex and sensitive issues and finally end the war.”

Putin has dismissed such a meeting repeatedly in the past, calling into question Zelenskyy’s legitimacy as Ukraine’s leader.

Meanwhile, Russian state news agency TASS reported the Kremlin’s economic affairs envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, was also due to be in Geneva on Thursday, where he would “pursue negotiations with the Americans on economic issues”.

Negotiations stalled

Despite Trump’s desire to bring an end to the conflict, one he claimed he could end in 24 hours after he retook office, the talks so far have failed to bear fruit.

Negotiations, based on a US plan unveiled late last year, have hit a roadblock over the thorniest territorial issues, such as control of the eastern Donbas, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine that has been at the heart of the fiercest fighting.

Russia is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, in the Donbas, and has threatened to take it by force if Kyiv does not cave in at the negotiating table.

But Ukraine has rejected the demand and signalled it would not sign a deal without security guarantees that deter Russia from invading again. The Ukrainian constitution also forbids the ceding of territory.

Hundreds of thousands of people on both sides are believed to have been killed in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Feb. 22 (UPI) — A nuclear deal will be the subject of negotiations between Washington and Iran Thursday, officials say.

Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will meet with Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, in Geneva following receipt of the proposal, which is expected Tuesday.

“If Iran gives a draft proposal, the U.S. is ready to meet in Geneva in order to start detailed negotiations to see if we can get a nuclear deal,” officials said, per Axios.

President Donald Trump had previously suggested that failure to reach a deal would lead to “bad things.”

Araghchi is slated to finish that proposal by Monday, the outlet reported.

“So there is no need for any military buildup, and military buildup cannot help it and annot pressurize us,” Araghchi said, CBS News reported.

He added that “If the U.S. attacks us, then we have every right to defend ourselves. Our missiles cannot hit the American soil. So obviously we have to do something else. We have to hit, you know, the Americans’ base in the region.”

Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi has confirmed that further talks between the United States and Iran will take place on Thursday amid spiralling tensions between the two countries.

“Pleased to confirm US-Iran negotiations are now set for Geneva this Thursday, with a positive push to go the extra mile towards finalizing the deal,” Albusaidi said in a social media post on Sunday.

The announcement comes as the US continues to amass military assets in the Middle East, raising concerns about an all-out war against Iran.

Hours before Oman’s announcement, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran was ready to put in place a “full monitoring mechanism” to guarantee the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme and ease tensions.

Asked by Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan why Iran would want to pursue enrichment on its soil rather than buy enriched uranium from abroad, given the US military build-up and risk of an escalation, Araghchi said the issue was a matter of “dignity and pride” for Iranians.

“We have developed this technology by ourselves, by our scientists, and it is very dear to us because we have created it – we have paid a huge expense for that,” he said.

Araghchi cited among the costs two decades of US sanctions, the targeted killings of Iranian scientists, and US-Israeli attacks on nuclear facilities in June.

“We’re not going to give [our nuclear programme] up; there is no legal reason to do that while everything is peaceful and safeguarded” by the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Araghchi said.

As a “committed member” of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which requires non-nuclear-weapon states not to seek or acquire nuclear weapons, Iran is “ready to cooperate with the agency in full”, Araghchi added.

But he stressed that under the treaty, Tehran also has “every right to enjoy a peaceful nuclear energy, including enrichment”.

“Enrichment is a sensitive part of our negotiations. The American team knows about our position, and we know their position. We have already exchanged our concerns, and I think a solution is achievable,” the minister noted.

Enrichment is the process of isolating and garnering a rare variant, or isotope, of uranium that can produce nuclear fission. At low levels, enriched uranium can power electric plants. If enriched to approximately 90 percent, it can be used for nuclear weapons.

US officials, including President Donald Trump, have previously suggested that Washington is seeking “zero enrichment” by Tehran.

Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said any deal with Iran would need to include agreements on ballistic missiles and support for its allies in the region.

Araghchi, however, said on Sunday that Iran was “negotiating only nuclear” at the present time.

“There is no other subject,” he told CBS News, adding that he was optimistic that a deal could be reached.

The second round of nuclear talks concluded in Geneva on February 17. The US and Iran also held indirect talks in Oman earlier this month.

The Iranian delegation is working ahead of the meeting to present a draft that includes “elements which can accommodate both sides’ concerns and interests” to reach a “fast deal”, Araghchi said.

The top Iranian diplomat added the agreement would likely be “better” than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated by former US President Barack Obama in 2015.

“There are elements that could be much better than the previous deal,” he said, without elaborating. “Right now, there is no need for too much detail. But we can agree on our nuclear programme to remain peaceful forever and at the same time, for more sanctions [to be] lifted.”

Some observers were less optimistic about the chances of striking a deal. Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, told Al Jazeera that Iran is likely to put forward a proposal that goes beyond anything they ever offered, but even that may not be enough.

“Trump has been sold a narrative by the Israelis that portrays Iran far, far weaker than it actually is. As a result, he’s adopting maximalist capitulation positions that are simply unrealistic based on how the power reality actually looks,” Parsi told Al Jazeera.

“Unless this gets corrected, even if the Iranians put forward a very far-leaning proposal that is extremely attractive to the US, Trump may still say no because he’s under the false belief that he can get something even better.”

“The talks have not broken down, but they have not really yielded any results.” Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid explains what happened—and what didn’t—at the third round of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.

Feb. 17 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump said he would participate “indirectly” in U.S.-Iran nuclear talks due to resume in Geneva on Tuesday.

Speaking aboard Air Force One on Monday night, Trump said the negotiations were very important and he believed Tehran wanted to reach a deal, saying the fallout of not doing so would be very bad news, referencing U.S. air and missile strikes on the country’s nuclear facilities in June, following failed negotiations.

“I don’t think they want the consequences of not making a deal. We could have had a deal instead of sending the B-2s [stealth bomber aircraft] in to knock out their nuclear potential. And we had to send the B-2s. I hope they’re going to be more reasonable,” said Trump, who acknowledged that they were tough to negotiate with.

Similar optimism for its own prospects emanated from the Iranian side on Monday with the foreign ministry in Tehran saying it believed the United States’ position had shifted to “a more realistic one,” regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

Following a meeting in Geneva on Monday with International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi on “technical matters,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he was heading into the talks with “real ideas” to achieve a fair and just agreement, vowing Iran would not be coerced.

“What is not on the table: submission before threats,” he wrote in a post on X.

On Friday, Trump announced he was dispatching a second carrier strike group, the USS Gerald Ford, to the region to join an already substantial U.S. naval armada in the Arabian to ratchet up pressure on Tehran over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and a deadly crackdown on protesters that began in late December.

Trump said he was deploying the world’s largest carrier to join the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group sent last month because if Iran didn’t “make a deal, we’ll need it.”

The Gerald Ford and its battleships and associated vessels, currently deployed in the Caribbean, are expected to arrive in the Arabian Sea in three to four weeks.

Tuesday’s negotiations pick up from talks in Oman on Feb. 6 where a U.S. team led by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, met with the Iranian’s led by Araghchi, although proceedings were mediated by Omani officials and the two sides did not talk face-to-face.

As well as agreement on curtailing Iran’s enrichment of uranium, the Trump administration wants the talks to include its ballistic missile arsenal, a recent brutal crackdown on public protests and backing of regional proxies Hamas and Hezbollah.

Tehran has been pushing back, insisting it is only willing to discuss reining in its nuclear program — in exchange for sanctions relief.

Delegations from Russia and Ukraine are set to meet for another round of peace talks in Geneva, as United States President Donald Trump pushes for an end to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

The two-day talks, which begin on Tuesday, are likely to focus on the issue of territory and come just days before the fourth anniversary, on February 24, of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Trump is pressing Moscow and Kyiv to reach a deal soon, though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has complained that his country is facing the greatest pressure from Washington to make concessions.

Russia ⁠is demanding that Kyiv cede the remaining 20 percent of the eastern region of Donetsk that Moscow has failed to capture – something Kyiv refuses to do.

Trump again increased the pressure on Ukraine late on Monday.

When asked about the talks on board Air Force One, he described the negotiations as “big” and said, “Ukraine better come to the table, fast.” He did not elaborate further, saying, “That’s all I am telling you.”

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. Those talks did not yield a breakthrough.

“This time, the idea is to discuss a broader range of issues, including, in fact, the main ones,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. “The main issues concern both the territories and everything else related to the demands we have put forward,” he said.

Ukraine, meanwhile, said Russia was unwilling to compromise and wants to keep fighting.

“Even on the eve of the trilateral meetings in Geneva, the Russian army has no orders other than to continue striking Ukraine. This speaks volumes about how Russia regards the partners’ diplomatic efforts,” Zelenskyy said in a social media post on Monday.

“Only with sufficient pressure on Russia and clear security guarantees for Ukraine can this war realistically be brought to an end,” he added.

‘Serious’ intentions

The Russia-Ukraine war has spiralled into Europe’s deadliest conflict since 1945, with tens of thousands killed, millions forced to flee their homes and many Ukrainian cities, towns and villages devastated by the fighting.

Russia occupies about one-fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region seized before the 2022 invasion. It wants Ukrainian troops to withdraw from swaths of heavily fortified and strategic territory as part of any peace deal. Kyiv has rejected the demand, which would be politically and militarily fraught, and has instead demanded robust security guarantees from the West.

The Kremlin said the Russian delegation would be led by Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to President Vladimir Putin.

However, the fact that Ukrainian negotiators have accused Medinsky in the past of lecturing them about history as an excuse for Russia’s invasion ⁠has further lowered expectations for any significant breakthrough in Geneva.

Military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov will also take part in the talks, while Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev will be part of a separate ⁠working group on economic issues.

Vladmir Sotnikov, a political scientist based in Moscow, said the Russian team will consist of about 20 people, many more than delegations in previous rounds of talks.

“I think the Russian intentions are serious. Because you know, the situation here in Russia is that ordinary people are just tired of this war,” he told Al Jazeera.

Kyiv’s delegation will be led by Rustem Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, and Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov. Senior presidential aide Serhiy Kyslytsya will ‌also be present.

Before the delegation left for Geneva, Umerov said Ukraine’s goal of “a sustainable and lasting peace” remained unchanged.

As well as land, Russia and Ukraine also remain far apart on issues such as who should control the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the ‌possible ‌role of Western troops in post-war Ukraine.

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will represent the Trump administration at the talks, according to the Reuters news agency. They are also attending talks in Geneva this week with Iran.

Iran’s top diplomat says he hopes to ‘achieve a fair and equitable deal’ before high-stakes talks are held on Tuesday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has arrived in Geneva for high-stakes second round of nuclear talks with the United States aimed at reducing tensions and avert a new military confrontation that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned could turn into a regional conflict.

“I am in Geneva with real ideas to achieve a fair and equitable deal,” Araghchi wrote on X on Monday. “What is not on the table: submission before threats.”

Iran and the US renewed negotiations earlier this month to tackle their ⁠decades-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme as US deploys warships, including a second aircraft carrier, to the region as mediators work to prevent a war.

Araghchi met with Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on Monday, after saying his team nuclear experts for a “deep technical discussion”.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog has been calling for access to Iran’s main nuclear facilities that were bombed by the US and Israel during the 12-day war in June. Tehran has said there might be a risk of radiation, so an official protocol is required to carry out the unprecedented task of inspecting highly enriched uranium ostensibly buried under the rubble.

Speaking to state-run IRNA news agency on Monday, foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said the IAEA will play “an important role” in upcoming mediated talks between Iran and the US. But he also renewed Tehran’s criticism of Grossi for the director’s refusal to condemn military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites that are protected under agency safeguards as part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Araghchi also said he would meet his Omani counterpart, Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi, who mediated the first round of talks between Iran and the US since the war earlier this month.

Iran has repeatedly emphasised that it will not agree to Washington’s demand for zero nuclear enrichment, and considers its missile programme a “red line” that cannot be negotiated.

Meanwhile, the US continues to build up its military presence in the region, with President Donald Trump saying a change of power in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen” and sending in a second aircraft carrier.

Trump is again likely to send his special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner to represent the White House in the Geneva talks. Brad Cooper, the most senior US military commander in the region, had unexpectedly joined the US delegation during the Muscat talks on February 6.

The talks also come over a month after Iran’s deadly crackdown against nationwide protests, with Iranian officials claiming “terrorists” and “rioters” armed and funded by the US and Israel were behind the unrest.

The UN and international human rights organisations have blamed Iranian authorities for the widespread use of lethal force against peaceful protesters, which killed thousands, mainly on the nights of January 8 and 9.

But the hardliners in Tehran are more concerned about any potential concessions that could be given during upcoming talks with the US.

Addressing an open session on Monday, one of the most hardline lawmakers in Iran’s parliament cautioned security chief Ali Larijani against giving inspection access to the IAEA befire ensuring Iran’s territorial integrity, the security of nuclear sites and scientists, and use of peaceful nuclear energy for civilian purposes under the NPT.

“When US warships have opened their arms to embrace Iranian missiles, US bases have opened arms to take our missiles, and the homes of Zionist military personnel are anticipating the sound of the air raid sirens, it is obvious that such conditions cannot be met at the moment,” said Hamid Rasaei, a cleric close to the hardline Paydari (Steadfastness) faction.

In the other diplomatic track pursued in Switzerland on Tuesday, officials will be discussing ways of ending the Ukraine war, which is approaching the end of its fourth year after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

But no immediate breakthrough appears in sight, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy telling the annual Munich Security Conference on Saturday that Kyiv has “too often” been asked to make concessions.

A deadly exchange of drone strikes has killed one person in Ukraine and one in Russia and cast doubts on the prospects of a ceasefire before another round of negotiations to end the war next week.

News of the deaths comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio signalled hurdles to reaching an agreement in Geneva as the conflict is about to enter its fifth year.

Zelenskyy told world leaders at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday while he hopes “substantive” progress will be reached during the trilateral meeting next week, it often feels like the two sides “are talking about different things” in negotiations. 

“The Americans often return to the topic of concessions, and too often those concessions are discussed only in the context of Ukraine, not Russia,” Zelenskyy said.

Rubio said it’s unclear if Moscow truly wants to make a peace deal.

“We don’t know if the Russians are serious about ending the war,” he said before the same Munich event. “We’re going to continue to test it.”

Among the most contentious issues in the negotiations is Russia’s demand for a full withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the remaining parts of Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk that it still controls.

Ukraine has rejected a unilateral pullback and wants Western security guarantees to deter Russia from relaunching its invasion if a ceasefire is reached.

Rubio did not attend a Ukraine-focused meeting with European and NATO leaders held on the sidelines of the first day of the Munich conference on Friday, citing scheduling issues.

In Munich on Saturday, Zelenskyy insisted Russia should not get away with its attack on Ukraine. He said he hoped the United States would stay involved in the peace negotiations and European countries would deepen their involvement.

Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel told Al Jazeera while US President Donald Trump should be credited with moving talks forward, he should put more pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin instead of Zelenskyy.

“Putin has shown no goodwill to come to the table and make a serious deal. The Ukrainians are ready,” van Weel said.

Last week, Zelenskyy said the US had given the warring parties a June deadline to reach a deal, although Trump’s previous ultimatums have not resulted in a breakthrough.

Two previous rounds of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, led by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, reportedly focused on military issues such as a possible buffer zone and ceasefire monitoring.

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, according to many estimates, making the war Europe’s deadliest since World War II.

Russia ⁠is ⁠suffering “crazy losses” in Ukraine with about 65,000 soldiers killed on the battlefield ⁠over the last two months, NATO ⁠Secretary-General Mark Rutte told the conference.

Separately, ‌Rutte told a media roundtable the NATO alliance is strong enough that Russia would not ⁠currently try to attack it. “We ⁠will win every fight with Russia if they ⁠attack us now, and we ⁠have to ⁠make sure in two, four, six years that same ‌is still the case.”

Among the latest casualties was an elderly woman killed on Saturday when a Russian drone hit a residential building in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.

On Wednesday, Russian strikes also killed three children, including two-year-old twins and their father in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.

In January alone, Russia launched more than 6,000 drone attacks against Ukraine, according to Zelenskyy. But he added Ukraine will soon produce enough interceptors to make Russia’s Iran-made Shahed drones “meaningless”.

He also told the Munich conference that every power plant in Ukraine has been damaged in Russian attacks.

In Russia, a civilian was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a car in the border region of Bryansk, Governor Alexander Bogomaz said.

The attacks came a day after a Ukrainian missile strike on the Russian city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine killed two people and wounded five, according to Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

Gladkov earlier said the attack also caused serious damage to energy facilities and electricity, heating and water supplies were cut off. Three apartment buildings in the city sustained damage, he said.

Ukrainian member of parliament Oleksiy Goncharenko, meanwhile, accused Moscow of launching “energy terror” with attacks on electricity facilities in the heart of winter.

“I can’t call it any other way because when it is minus 20 Celsius in Kyiv and you don’t have heating, you don’t have electricity in your apartment, you’re just freezing and that is awful,” Goncharenko told Al Jazeera in Munich.

“I think it’s time for the United States to put real pressure on Russia. Yes, they are at the table, but it’s time to put real pressure to make them have real negotiations, because what we have today is not real negotiations.”