U.S., Russia meet for ‘substantial’ talks, but breakthroughs on Ukraine appear unlikely | CBC News

The pair made only brief eye contact when they posed for photographs beforehand.

“The talks promise to be long and substantial,” the Russian diplomatic mission in Geneva tweeted, with a picture of the two lead negotiators standing in front of their national flags.

Sherman said “the U.S. will listen to Russia’s concerns and share our own” in an earlier tweet from Geneva, adding that no discussions on European security would be held without the presence of other allies. Discussions will move to meetings in Brussels and Vienna later this week.

WATCH | Recap of the most recent phone discussion between Biden, Putin:

Biden urges Putin to de-escalate border crisis with Ukraine

U.S. President Joe Biden warned Vladimir Putin against further incursions into Ukraine during a phone call requested by the Russian president. 2:01

Ryabkov has said the diplomacy could end after a single meeting, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken played down expectations for the high-stakes talks.

“I don’t think we’re going to see any breakthroughs in the coming week,” Blinken said in a CNN interview on Sunday.

Nearly 100,000 Russian troops are gathered within reach of the border with Ukraine in preparation for what Washington and Kyiv say could be a new invasion, eight years after Russia seized Crimea from the former Soviet republic.

Russia denies invasion plans and said it is responding to what it calls aggressive behaviour from the NATO military alliance and Ukraine.

NATO talks with Russia later this week

As Ukraine is not a NATO member, it could not count on alliance members to defend it. But U.S. President Joe Biden has repeatedly warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that the United States and European allies would impose tough sanctions if Russia chose to invade Ukraine. Putin has said new sanctions could lead to a “complete breakdown in ties.”

Last month, Russia presented sweeping demands, including a ban on further NATO expansion and an end to the alliance’s activity in central and eastern European countries that joined it after 1997.

The United States and NATO say large parts of the Russian proposals are non-starters.

Ryabkov told RIA news agency Russia would not accept U.S. attempts to limit the agenda to discussion of military exercises and missile deployments — the topics outlined by the Biden administration as areas it is willing to broach.

“We need legal guarantees of the non-expansion of NATO and the elimination of everything that the alliance has created since 1997,” Ryabkov said.

Russia had tried to show flexibility for the past 30 years and it was time for the other side to be flexible, he said.

“If they are unable to do this, they will face a worsening situation in their own security.”

The two countries are also at odds over Russia’s deployment of troops in Kazakhstan, its support for Belarus in a migrant crisis on the European Union’s border, and what Washington sees as Russia’s use of its gas supplies to Europe to gain political leverage over its neighbours.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who will meet the Russian team on Wednesday in Brussels, said Russia and the West could find a pathway to avoid conflict.

“What we are hoping for is that we can agree on a way forward, that we can agree on a series of meetings, that we can agree on a process,” Stoltenberg said.

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna, appearing alongside him, said Russia should not set conditions while its tanks remained near the Ukrainian border.

Russia has scorned Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy as a viable negotiating partner, but the United States and other Western governments have said they are fully committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.