Russia says “no deadlines” for Ukraine ceasefire as Trump pushes for deal

Geneva — Russia signaled Thursday that it was in no rush to make a deal to end its war on Ukraine, hours after it attacked the neighboring country with hundreds of drones and missiles and as U.S. and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva to discuss efforts to end the war.

President Trump has been pushing for an end to Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, but has so far failed to broker any agreement between Moscow and Kyiv. Previous rounds of U.S.-led negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Geneva and Abu Dhabi failed to yield a compromise, with Moscow’s demand to take formal ownership of a vast portion of Ukraine proving a key sticking point.

Russia, which has for years refused to budge on its demand for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, said Thursday it was too early to make forecasts about when a deal would take place.

“Have you heard anything from us about deadlines? We have no deadlines, we have tasks. We are getting them done,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told state media in Moscow, two days into the fifth year of his country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said it was too early to make “forecasts” or say at what stage the peace process was at, telling state media “it would be a big mistake to try right now to define some kind of stage or make some kind of forecasts. I don’t want to make those mistakes.”

Kyiv has called for a leaders’ meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to break the deadlock, and Ukraine hoped to lay the ground for such a summit during the talks on Thursday with U.S. officials.

“Today in Geneva we continue our work within the framework of the negotiation process. A bilateral meeting with the American delegation has begun — with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner,” Ukraine’s lead negotiator Rustem Umerov said, adding that Ukraine was aiming to “synchronize positions” with Washington ahead of fresh trilateral talks in March.

Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev was planning to be in Geneva on Thursday, though there was no indication he planned to meet the Ukrainian side, according to Russian state media.

“Dmitriev plans to arrive in Geneva on Thursday to pursue negotiations with the Americans on economic issues,” Russia’s TASS news agency cited an unnamed source as saying.

Talks between Moscow and Kyiv remain deadlocked over the fate of the Donbas — the industrial region in eastern Ukraine that has been the epicenter of the fighting. Russia is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which forms a significant portion of the Donbas, and has threatened to take it by force if Kyiv does not cave at the negotiating table.

But Ukraine has rejected the demand and signaled it would not sign a deal without security guarantees that deter Russia from invading again.

“The aggressor must not receive any reward for the war,” Zelenskyy reiterated in a social media post on Thursday. “So that peace can truly last, everyone must understand — these are not just words.”

Another night of Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine

Hours before the meeting, Russian forces launched some 420 drones and 39 missiles at Ukraine, wounding more than two dozen people in at least six different regions, according to authorities.

AFP journalists heard several explosions in central Kyiv shortly after authorities warned Russia had launched its attack.

The strikes hit an electricity substation in the southern Odesa region, as well as a school building in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, according to officials.

“Destruction has been recorded in eight regions, with many private homes and apartment buildings damaged,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy spoke with President Trump on Wednesday ahead of the talks, with U.S. envoys Witkoff and Kushner part of the 30-minute call.

“We expect this meeting (in Geneva) to create an opportunity to move talks to the leaders’ level. President Trump supports this sequence of steps,” Zelenskyy said.

After first refusing to negotiate with Russia, Zelenskyy has repeatedly said that the only way of resolving difficult issues, including territory, is through a meeting with Putin.