US, Ukraine to meet in Geneva as Russia hits cities with missiles, drones 

Russia pounded Ukraine with a barrage of missile and drone attacks across the country overnight, wounding at least 25 people, in advance of the latest high-level meeting between Kyiv and Washington aimed at ending the war, now in its fifth year.

At least 16 people were injured in attacks in the early hours of Thursday in the northeastern city of Kharkiv and the surrounding region, emergency services said, while in southeastern Zaporizhia, at least seven people were injured in attacks that damaged 19 apartment buildings, four homes and several other buildings.

Two people were also injured in the central city of Kryvyi Rih, officials said.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the latest attacks on the capital in the early hours of Thursday caused damage to a nine-storey residential building in the Darnytskyi district and fires in a home and garages elsewhere in the city.

The strikes on the capital prompted the activation of air defence systems to counter the attack, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration, said, advising residents to remain in shelters until the assault was over. No casualties were reported in the capital.

Ukraine has faced regular overnight barrages as Russia targets cities with missiles and drones in harsh winter conditions in recent months, also targeting civilian energy infrastructure, even amid an ongoing push by Washington to try to negotiate an end to Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

US, Ukrainian delegations to meet

The strikes came before a scheduled meeting in the Swiss city of Geneva between Ukraine’s lead negotiator Rustem Umerov and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, being held in advance of a full session of talks involving Moscow, Kyiv and Washington expected in early March.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday he had spoken with US President Donald Trump before the talks, with Witkoff and Kushner part of the 30-minute call, to discuss the issues that their representatives would cover in Geneva, “as well as preparations for the next meeting of the full negotiating teams in a trilateral format at the very beginning of March”.

Zelenskyy, who has repeatedly sought face-to-face meetings with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to resolve the most challenging issues, said he expected the meeting in Geneva would “create an opportunity to move talks to the leaders’ level”.

“President Trump supports this sequence of steps,” he said. “This is the only way to resolve all the complex and sensitive issues and finally end the war.”

Putin has dismissed such a meeting repeatedly in the past, calling into question Zelenskyy’s legitimacy as Ukraine’s leader.

Meanwhile, Russian state news agency TASS reported the Kremlin’s economic affairs envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, was also due to be in Geneva on Thursday, where he would “pursue negotiations with the Americans on economic issues”.

In another development, ⁠Russia ⁠transferred the bodies ⁠of 1,000 dead ⁠Ukrainian soldiers in exchange for those of 35 ‌Russians, Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky said on Thursday. The two ⁠sides have periodically ⁠exchanged their war dead in the ⁠course of ⁠the ⁠war, but not have not built on that to secure an elusive peace.

Negotiations stalled

Despite Trump’s desire to bring an end to the conflict, one he claimed he could end in 24 hours after he retook office, the talks so far have failed to bear fruit.

Negotiations, based on a US plan unveiled late last year, have hit a roadblock over the thorniest territorial issues, such as control of the eastern Donbas, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine that has been at the heart of the fiercest fighting.

Russia is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, in the Donbas, and has threatened to take it by force if Kyiv does not cave in at the negotiating table.

But Ukraine has rejected the demand and signalled it would not sign a deal without security guarantees that deter Russia from invading again. The Ukrainian constitution also forbids the ceding of territory.

Hundreds of thousands of people on both sides are believed to have been killed in Russia’s war in Ukraine.