U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) communicate to the media after their assembly with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, amid Russia’s assault on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine on February 16, 2026.
| Photograph Credit score: Reuters
Russian and Ukrainian negotiators launched recent U.S.-brokered talks on Tuesday (February 17, 2026) in Geneva searching for to finish the four-year warfare, hours after each side launched a recent wave of long-range strikes.
U.S. President Donald Trump is searching for to place himself as a peacemaker of the battle unleashed when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, however earlier rounds of talks mediated by the White Home have yielded no breakthroughs.
Moscow’s troops have been grinding via japanese and southern Ukraine for months at immense human value, betting they’ll outgun and outlast Kyiv’s stretched military whereas vowing to combat on if Ukraine doesn’t cave on the negotiating desk.
Kyiv is pushing for strong Western-backed safety ensures to make sure Russia doesn’t re-invade, whereas AFP evaluation discovered its forces had made restricted, however speedy, progress in a key part of the entrance in latest days.
“Safety and humanitarian points are on the agenda,” lead Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov wrote on social media, asserting the assembly had begun. A supply within the Russian delegation confirmed to reporters — together with AFP — that the talks began.
Mr. Umerov additional cooled already low expectations, saying that the delegation was approaching the discussions “with out extreme expectations.”
Even earlier than the talks have been underway, Ukraine had accused Russia of undermining peace efforts by launching 29 missiles and 396 drones in a sequence of assaults that authorities mentioned killed at the very least 4 folks, wounded others, and lower energy to tens of hundreds in southern Ukraine.
“The extent to which Russia disregards peace efforts: a large missile and drone strike in opposition to Ukraine proper earlier than the subsequent spherical of talks in Geneva,” International Minister Andriy Sybiga wrote on social media.
Ukrainian vitality officers mentioned a Russian drone strike had killed three workers of an influence plant within the frontline city of Sloviansk in japanese Ukraine. One other particular person was killed within the northeastern Sumy area, native officers mentioned.
Mr. Sybiga repeated Ukraine’s name for allies to exert better stress on Russia to barter in good religion by making use of extra sanctions on Moscow.
Trump warning to Kyiv
The talks come after two earlier rounds held this yr in Abu Dhabi and a number of other makes an attempt final yr to interrupt the impasse. Russia additionally mentioned Ukraine had launched a large-scale assault in a single day — claimed to have repelled greater than 150 drones primarily over southern areas and Crimean peninsula — occupied by the Kremlin in 2014.
Officers mentioned an oil depot in southern Russia caught hearth. The Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov informed journalists to count on no main information from the primary day of talks which might be scheduled to roll over into Wednesday (February 18, 2026).
The warfare has spiralled into Europe’s deadliest battle since World Warfare II, with lots of of hundreds killed, tens of millions pressured to flee their properties in Ukraine and far of the japanese and southern a part of the nation scarred by warfare.
Russia occupies round one-fifth of Ukraine — together with the Crimean peninsula it seized in 2014 — and areas that Moscow-backed separatists had taken previous to the 2022 invasion.
However its war-time financial worries are mounting, with progress stagnating and a ballooning price range deficit as oil revenues — choked by sanctions — drop to a five-year low.
Impasse
For the talks in Geneva, the Kremlin reinstated nationalist hawk and former tradition minister Vladimir Medinsky as its lead negotiator.
Moscow desires Ukrainian troops to withdraw from swathes of closely fortified and strategic territory as a part of any peace deal. However Kyiv has rejected this deeply unpopular demand, which might be politically and militarily fraught, and has as a substitute demanded safety ensures from the West earlier than agreeing to any proposals with Russia.
“Ukraine higher come to the desk, quick,” Mr. Trump informed reporters forward of the negotiations. Russia has been slowly capturing territory throughout the sprawling entrance line for months.
However Ukrainian forces lately made their quickest positive factors in two-and-a-half years, recapturing 201 sq. kilometres (78 sq. miles) final week, in keeping with an AFP evaluation of knowledge from the Institute for the Research of Warfare. The counterattacks possible leveraged the disruption of Russian forces’ entry to Starlink, the ISW mentioned.
Printed – February 17, 2026 08:36 pm IST