Is the latest round of Russia-Ukraine peace talks, sponsored by the United States and currently under way in Geneva, likely to hasten the war’s end? Donald Trump seems to believe so. On Friday, the US President claimed that ‘Russia wants to make a deal, and Zelensky will have to hurry. Otherwise, he will miss a great opportunity. He needs to act.’ Europe, for its part, remains deeply sceptical and is urging Ukraine to fight on. As the EU’s Foreign Affairs chief Kaja Kallas told the Munich security conference last week, ‘the greatest threat Russia presents right now is that it gains more at the negotiation table than it has achieved on the battlefield.’

Despite Trump’s claim that Putin is ready to end the war, there is as yet no sign of any newfound spirit of compromise from the Russian side. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov yesterday said that the principal issue for Moscow was ‘the demands we have put forward’ on territory – namely, an insistence that Kyiv surrender the 20 per cent of Donbas that Russian forces have so far not succeeded in taking. Russia’s deputy foreign minister Mikhail Galuzin – a member of the Russian delegation at the Geneva talks – made the bizarre suggestion that Ukraine could be temporarily transferred to UN rule while it held new parliamentary and presidential elections, as well as a possible referendum on ceding territory. And former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Russian delegation, claimed........

© The Spectator