Negotiators from Russia and Ukraine have wrapped up a second day of talks in Geneva, and both sides have described the negotiations as “difficult” as the United States continues to press for an end to Russia’s war.

The talks, mediated by the US, followed two rounds of US-brokered negotiations held in the United Arab Emirates in January and early February.

Global News Insight’s Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Geneva, said the talks lasted five to six hours on Tuesday but Wednesday’s meetings were much shorter.

“When you speak to experts who work on these talks, they’ll tell you that this is not a good sign,” he said.

The main sticking point in efforts to end the nearly four-year war has been territory as Russia pushes for Ukraine to give up the remaining 20 percent of the eastern region of Donetsk that Russian forces have failed to capture.

Kyiv has refused that demand while calling for robust security guarantees from its Western allies to prevent any other Russian attack should an agreement to end the war be reached.

After this week’s meetings, Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s top negotiator, said the two days of talks in Geneva were “difficult but businesslike”.

Medinsky told reporters that further negotiations would be held soon, without specifying a date.

Russia’s state RIA news agency reported that Medinsky held a ⁠two-hour, closed-door meeting with ⁠the Ukrainian side in Geneva after the end of formal ‌talks.

Rustem Umerov, the head of Kyiv’s negotiating team, said separately that the second day had been “intensive and substantive”. Both sides were working towards decisions that can be sent to their presidents, he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters in a WhatsApp chat shortly after the talks concluded: “We can see that progress has been made, but for now, positions ⁠differ because the negotiations were difficult.”

Pressure from Trump

In an interview with the US news website Axios published on Tuesday, Zelenskyy was quoted as saying that it was “not fair” that US President Donald Trump kept publicly calling on Ukraine, not Russia, to make concessions in negotiating terms for a peace plan.

Trump had told reporters on Monday that “Ukraine better come to the table fast. That’s all I’m telling you.”

Zelenskyy also said any plan requiring Ukraine to give up territory in its east that Russia had not captured would be rejected by Ukrainians if put to ⁠a referendum.

“I hope it is just his tactics and not the decision,” Axios quoted Zelenskyy as saying in ⁠the interview.

Reporting from Kyiv on Wednesday, Global News Insight’s Audrey MacAlpine noted that Zelenskyy also previously said he was “willing to consider the question of territory but that he needs iron-clad security guarantees from the United States”.

“There is a fear here in Ukraine that if Ukraine does make these concessions, that this might just allow time for Russia to regroup, to regather its forces and to invade Ukraine again,” MacAlpine said.

For its part, Russia has appeared unwilling to back down from its main demands, including the recognition of the territorial gains it has made and for Ukraine to forgo joining NATO.

Moscow also has said it would oppose any potential deployment of international peacekeepers, Global News Insight’s Yulia Shapovalova reported from the Russian capital.

“The negotiations will continue soon, according to the head of the Russian delegation, but taking into account all the differences and the unwillingness of both sides to compromise, it’s hard to expect a breakthrough any time soon,” Shapovalova said.

Ongoing attacks

Despite the negotiations, fighting between Russia and Ukraine has continued apace.

Hours before the talks began on Tuesday, Ukraine said Russia launched 29 missiles and 396 drones overnight, killing at least four people and cutting off power to tens of thousands of residents in southern Ukraine.

In advance of Wednesday’s negotiations, Ukraine said Russian forces launched one ballistic missile and deployed 126 drones in an overnight attack, including a strike on the city of Zaporizhzhia that killed seven people, according to the head of the Regional Military Administration, Ivan Fedorov.

Three other people were killed in a Russian drone attack on a civilian car in the Donetsk region, according to the State Emergency Service in the region.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces hit two bunkers housing Ukrainian troops in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

For its part, Russia said Ukrainian shelling and drone attacks killed two people overnight into Wednesday and claimed to have repelled more than 150 Ukrainian drones over the previous day.

Kyiv places sanctions on Belarus

Ukraine imposed a ‌package of sanctions against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Wednesday, promising to “increase countermeasures” ⁠against Minsk for its ⁠wartime assistance to Russia.

Belarus, one of Russia’s closest allies, served as a staging ground for Moscow to launch its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“We will significantly intensify countermeasures against all forms of [Lukashenko’s] assistance in the killing of Ukrainians,” Zelenskyy ⁠said on social media.

Zelenskyy said Belarus, which shares a border of more than 1,000km (621 miles) with Ukraine, has aided Moscow’s extensive drone attacks on Ukraine.

“The Russians would not have been able to carry out some of the attacks, particularly on energy facilities and railways in our regions, without such assistance from Belarus,” said Zelenskyy, whose order also banned Lukashenko ⁠from entering Ukraine.