Geneva peace talks aimed at resolving the conflict in Ukraine adjourned earlier Wednesday with no immediate breakthrough, as Russia continued to demand significant territorial and political concessions. The discussions, led by US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, represent the latest in a series of failed attempts to end the war, now approaching its fourth anniversary.
The current round of negotiations unfolded against a backdrop of shifting US policy toward the conflict. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly asserted he could broker a ceasefire within “24 hours,” a promise that has so far gone unfulfilled. Recent months have seen the administration oscillate between criticizing both Moscow and Kyiv, and urging Ukraine to consider ceding territory to achieve a resolution, a position that has drawn sharp rebuke from Ukrainian officials.
The first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine took place just four days after Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 28, 2022. Those initial discussions, involving high-level officials, yielded no progress due to fundamentally opposing objectives. Three subsequent rounds of direct talks in Belarus, concluding on March 7, 2022, also failed to produce any agreements.
A brief period of diplomatic momentum emerged in July 2022 with the signing of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered by Turkiye and the United Nations. The agreement established a safe maritime corridor for Ukrainian grain exports, aiming to avert a global food crisis. Though, Russia later withdrew from the initiative in July 2023.
Throughout 2023, various peace proposals were put forward, including a 10-point plan presented by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the G20 summit in Indonesia. Zelenskyy’s proposal called for a complete Russian withdrawal from Ukrainian territory and guarantees for food and energy security. Russia rejected the plan, maintaining its refusal to relinquish control of occupied territories. China also proposed a 12-point peace plan in February 2023, calling for a ceasefire and an end to Western sanctions, but it was criticized by Western allies for failing to acknowledge Russia’s violation of Ukrainian sovereignty.
In June 2024, Switzerland hosted a summit on peace in Ukraine, bringing together over 90 nations. The summit focused on nuclear safety, food security, and prisoner exchanges, but Russia was not invited, and the final communique lacked universal support.
A shift in US engagement occurred in February 2025, with a phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, followed by a meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Saudi Arabia. These discussions, conducted without the direct involvement of Ukraine or the European Union, raised concerns in Kyiv and Brussels. Later that month, a highly publicized and reportedly contentious meeting took place at the White House between Trump and Zelenskyy, where Trump reportedly pressed Zelenskyy to accept territorial concessions.
Subsequent talks in August 2025, including a meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska, failed to yield a breakthrough. In November 2025, a draft peace plan reportedly authored by Witkoff and Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, which suggested a cap on Ukraine’s military and a freeze on NATO membership, sparked accusations that the US was seeking a “capitulation” from Ukraine.
Prior to the current Geneva talks, discussions in Abu Dhabi in January 2026 resulted in a prisoner exchange involving 314 prisoners of war, but key political and security issues remained unresolved. The current impasse centers on Russia’s insistence on retaining control of territories seized from Ukraine, a demand Kyiv has consistently rejected. Ukraine’s ambassador has pushed back on Trump’s belief that handing land to Putin would satisfy his appetite for further territorial gains.
The Geneva talks are scheduled to resume, but no date has been set. Senior military figures from both Ukraine and Russia are expected to participate in future discussions.
