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Moscow is in no hurry to reach an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested Thursday, as negotiations involving Russia, Ukraine, and the United States continued in Geneva.
Negotiators from both Kyiv and Moscow held separate talks with U.S. officials in Switzerland as part of a U.S.-backed diplomatic push led by President Donald Trump to end the fighting.
Despite multiple rounds of discussions, no breakthrough has emerged. Moscow has maintained hardline territorial and political demands that Ukraine has rejected as unacceptable.
Speaking to Russian state media, Lavrov dismissed speculation about deadlines for reaching a deal.
“Have you heard anything from us about deadlines? We have no deadlines; we have tasks. We are getting them done,” Russian news agencies quoted him as saying.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also cautioned against concluding the state of the talks.
“It would be a big mistake to try right now to define some kind of stage or make some kind of forecasts,” Peskov told state media. “I don’t want to make those mistakes.”
Peskov reiterated that Russia would not agree to a summit between President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky until negotiations are finalized at the technical level.
Zelensky has repeatedly said that only direct talks with Putin can resolve key issues, including the fate of Ukrainian territory that Russia is seeking to seize in the east.
On Wednesday, Zelenskyy and Trump discussed the Geneva talks and next steps in a phone call, according to a statement Zelensky posted on the U.S.-based social media platform X.
Zelensky said the call was also attended by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The leaders discussed preparations for the next trilateral talks involving Ukraine, Russia, and the United States, which Zelensky said could take place “at the very beginning of March.”
“We expect this meeting to create an opportunity to move talks to the leaders’ level,” Zelensky said. “President Trump supports this sequence of steps. This is the only way to resolve all the complex and sensitive issues and finally end the war.”
Zelensky said Ukrainian and American teams are working “intensively” and thanked U.S. officials for their involvement in the negotiations.
He highlighted continued U.S. military assistance, including air defense missiles purchased by Ukraine, saying they have been critical during what he described as the country’s most difficult winter.
“We also greatly value the PURL (Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List) initiative,” Zelensky said, adding that U.S.-supplied air defense systems have helped protect civilian lives.
Earlier, Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, was scheduled to meet on Thursday with Witkoff and Kushner.
The talks are expected to include a discussion of what Zelenskyy described as a “Prosperity Package” for Ukraine. Economy Minister Oleksii Sobolev will accompany Umerov for the first time, Zelenskyy said.
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