GENEVA—In talks about ending the war, Ukraine and Russia have converged on one goal: to avoid angering President Trump by appearing to block peace.
They continue to send delegations to talks mediated by U.S. officials who applaud their constructive attitude and report back to Trump, who seeks a peace deal in Ukraine as his greatest diplomatic victory.
U.S.-brokered negotiations in Geneva this week ended like other talks this year: with no one able to point to any real movement.
The head of Russia’s delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, called the talks “tough but businesslike.” Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, described them as “substantive.” The U.S. special envoy,Steve Witkoff, hailed “meaningful progress,” without specifying.
The upbeat diplomatic buzzwords belie the impasse in a peace process that many observers, and even some participants, said has turned into political theater.
“These talks aren’t moving us closer to ending the war,” said Ivo Daalder, who was a U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization during the Obama administration. “It’s a game to avoid being blamed for Trump’s failure to end the war.”
“President Trump’s success in bringing both sides of this war together, including at three trilateral meetings, has continued to generate meaningful progress,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “Both parties agreed to update their respective leaders and continue working towards a deal.”
Trump has said he is mediating to stop the loss of life even though the U.S. is an ocean away and the war should be Europe’s business. He told the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last month that a deal between Russia and Ukraine was “reasonably close.”
“I believe they’re at a point now where they can come together and get a deal done. And if they don’t, they’re stupid,” he said.
Most recently, Trump has returned to blaming Ukraine—a country that has spent four years holding back a full-scale Russian invasion—for not agreeing to a deal that would give away territory vital to its defenses.
A senior Ukrainian official said the three rounds of trilateral talks so far this year, two in Abu Dhabi and one in Geneva, have amounted to a performance to persuade the U.S. president that Ukraine isn’t the problem.
Moscow and Kyiv both fear that the unpredictable American leader could hurt them if he loses patience. Trump has already ended the bulk of American aid for Kyiv, but Ukrainian forces still get vital U.S. intelligence support, while the U.S. sells arms to Europe that are passed on to Ukraine’s defenders.
Tighter Western sanctions could cripple Russia’s ailing economy, especially if they further squeeze its vital oil revenue. And as the costs of its invasion mount, according to analysts, Russia needs American help to pressure Ukraine into concessions.
“Putin can’t afford to anger Trump, as the Russian economy is rapidly deteriorating and new sanctions are counterproductive. Therefore he is diligently playing the role of a man prepared for a peaceful resolution,” said Abbas Gallyamov, a political analyst and former Kremlin speechwriter.
The Kremlin didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
History lectures
Ukraine openly questions Russia’s sincerity about the talks, accusing Moscow’s negotiators of playing for time by giving history lectures. “I don’t need historical s— to end this war,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted on the social-media platform X on Thursday. “It’s just a delay tactic.”
Medinsky, Russia’s chief negotiator, is a leading architect of the historical revisionism that Russian President Vladimir Putin used to justify invading Ukraine.
Russian officials said that Putin and Trump reached an agreement over Ukraine this past summer in Alaska and that Kyiv needs to accept the terms—although no such accord was ever made public.
The Kremlin’s consistent demands include territorial concessions by Kyiv, a restoration of Moscow’s influence over Ukraine’s domestic and international affairs, and a rollback of NATO in Eastern Europe.
Some analysts said the talks are real, not performative. “The fact that very little has leaked out about the talks suggests a level of seriousness we have not seen in the past,” said Thomas Graham, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former White House official. “This does not mean we get a deal. But people are trying.”
The intelligence services of several Western countries, however, have determined that Putin isn’t negotiating in good faith, according to several senior European officials. Instead, the assessment is that Putin is trying to use the U.S.-brokered talks to make gains he is struggling to achieve on the battlefield.
For months, Trump has oscillated between blaming Zelensky and Putin for the impasse. Most of the time, Trump has said he believes Putin wants a deal. Meanwhile, Russia’s bombardment of Ukrainian cities has left millions without heating and electricity in the midst of freezing winter temperatures.
This week, Trump again pointed the finger at Zelensky. “Ukraine better come to the table fast, that’s all I’m telling you,” he said in comments aboard Air Force One on Monday.
Donbas dilemma
The White House has been working off the optimistic theory that Putin’s war aims are more limited than his public rhetoric—and that he would be satisfied if Ukraine just gave up the rest of its eastern Donbas region, most of which Russia has occupied.
But Russian officials keep loudly repeating to anyone who will listen that they haven’t given up their broader goals, which Putin has stated in numerous speeches and essays over the years.
Russia wants all of Donbas, but also a rewiring of Ukraine’s government, military, media, religion and identity, amounting to the restoration of Russian sway over the country.
Russia believes it is winning on both the battlefield and the diplomatic front, said Tatiana Stanovaya, an analyst at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
“They see it as a process that is slowly, slowly pushing Ukraine towards Russia’s goals,” she said. “The message is: ‘We can stop the war today, but you must fulfill all our demands.’ It’s still the same position. Nothing has changed.”
The part of Donbas that Ukraine still controls is the linchpin of its defenses: a network of fortified cities where Russian forces have taken staggering losses as they advance at a snail’s pace.
Zelensky isn’t willing simply to hand over the unoccupied part of Donbas. Instead, he is proposing a mutual pullback of troops by Ukraine and Russia, which Moscow rejects. The Kremlin also rejects the Western plan for security guarantees, which would involve stationing European forces in Ukraine after a cease-fire.
Meanwhile, Ukraine wants the U.S. and Europe to give it explicit, binding guarantees of military assistance if Russia invades again. Trump wants Ukraine to make concessions on territory first, but Zelensky wants to see cast-iron commitments on security guarantees before it signs anything.
Some progress has been made in the talks, albeit not on the core strategic issues, according to Ukrainian and Russian delegates. Previous negotiations have produced agreements on prisoner exchanges. Military officials from both sides have outlined how the monitoring of a cease-fire could work.
But no cease-fire is in sight. Senior European officials said the war is likely to continue for another one to three years.
The White House has repeatedly urged Moscow and Kyiv to make a deal as soon as possible, with some U.S. officials hoping an agreement is completed ahead of the U.S. midterm elections in November.
But Trump isn’t placing any extra pressure on Putin or Zelensky to coerce them into a deal, U.S. officials said. Instead, they said, the Trump administration is slowly losing interest in the peace process as it turns attention toward nuclear negotiations with Iran and rebuilding Gaza.
Write to Matthew Luxmoore at matthew.luxmoore@wsj.com and Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com