GENEVA, Feb 18 - Negotiators for Ukraine and Russia met in Geneva for a second day of U.S.-facilitated discussions on Wednesday, amid public tensions over pressure placed on Ukraine by U.S. political figures. The talks, held in Switzerland, continued against a backdrop of sharp public comments from both Kyiv and Washington.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told U.S. outlet Axios that he regarded recent public calls from U.S. President Donald Trump for Ukraine to make concessions as unfair. In the interview, Zelenskiy said it was "not fair" that Trump repeatedly urged Ukraine, rather than Russia, to take steps in order to advance a peace plan.
Zelenskiy also set a clear condition for any proposal involving territorial concessions. He told Axios that a plan that required Ukraine to relinquish territory that Russia had not captured in the eastern Donbas region would be rejected if presented to Ukrainians in a referendum. "I hope it is just his tactics and not the decision," he added, according to the interview.
At the same time, Zelenskiy expressed appreciation for Trump's mediation efforts and drew a distinction between the tone of the president's public remarks and the conversations Kiev had with the U.S. negotiating team. He said his exchanges with senior U.S. envoys - named in reporting as Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner - did not involve the same kind of public pressure.
Trump told reporters on Monday that "Ukraine better come to the table fast. That's all I'm telling you." The comment was among several recent public statements by the U.S. president urging Ukraine to take steps to ensure progress in the talks.
Ukraine's lead negotiator, Rustem Umerov, who heads the National Security and Defence Council, said that the discussions on Tuesday were centered on "practical issues and the mechanics of possible decisions," though he did not provide specific details about those mechanics. Umerov had earlier cautioned against expecting a breakthrough in Geneva, saying the Ukrainian delegation was proceeding "without excessive expectations."
Russian officials did not issue public comments about the Geneva sessions. Russian news agencies, however, cited an unnamed source describing the talks as "very tense" and reported that negotiations extended for six hours across various bilateral and trilateral formats.
In his nightly address on Tuesday, Zelenskiy said he was awaiting a report from the negotiating team in Geneva. He reiterated Ukraine's readiness to act quickly should a "worthy agreement to end the war" be within reach, and posed a question to Moscow: "The question for the Russians is: Just what do they want?"
The Geneva meetings follow two prior rounds of U.S.-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi, which concluded without a major breakthrough as the delegations remained far apart on fundamental issues, including control over territory in eastern Ukraine.
Early on Wednesday, Steve Witkoff praised President Trump's role in bringing both sides together, saying on the social platform X that the president's actions had "brought about meaningful progress," and noting that both parties agreed to update their respective leaders and continue working toward a deal. Witkoff described the mediation effort as yielding "fruit," while expressing pride in working under Trump's leadership to try to halt the fighting.
Context and next steps
Delegations in Geneva spent the second day focusing on implementation questions and procedural designs for possible decisions, according to Ukrainian officials. With Russian officials silent on public statements and Russian media citing tensions in the sessions, the talks' immediate trajectory remained uncertain. Kyiv continues to emphasize that any territorial concessions outside areas captured by Russia in Donbas would not be acceptable to voters if put to a referendum.