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By Shane Croucher and John Feng
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Russian President Vladimir Putin is sending an expanded delegation to the latest round of talks on Ukraine with "detailed instructions," his spokesman said.
The larger delegation will include Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, the chief of the intelligence directorate of the Russian Armed Forces, Igor Kostyukov, and the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev.
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“Of course, the president is in constant contact with our negotiators,” Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, state news agency TASS reported, originally in Russian. “And naturally, they receive detailed instructions prior to departure.”
Peskov said the "delegation will be expanded this time" for the talks, due to take place on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“This time, the intention is to discuss a wider range of issues, including the main issues that concern territories and everything else—those that are connected with the demands we have," Peskov said. "This requires the presence of the chief negotiator, that is, Medinsky."
Peace talks remain mostly stuck on the issue of territory, in particular control of the eastern Donbas region, Ukraine's industrial heartland.
Ukraine still controls around a fifth of Donetsk and rejects Russia's demand that it cede all of Donbas to Moscow, citing constitutional and moral objections.
President Donald Trump, whose administration is attempting to broker a peace deal that has eluded him for months, has given Russia and Ukraine a June deadline to reach an agreement that ends the war.
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Kyiv has proposed the idea of turning Donbas into a demilitarized zone, but with U.S.-backed security guarantees for Ukraine to deter further Russian aggression in the future.
Ukraine has also been under pressure from the U.S. to hold a presidential election and a referendum on the Donbas issue.
Elections have been suspended due to Ukraine's state of martial law amid Russia's invasion.
Russia has rejected Ukrainian proposals for a ceasefire to allow for elections, saying Kyiv would use the pause in fighting to regroup and rearm.
The latest talks in Geneva take place against a backdrop of continued fighting along the roughly 750-mile front line, relentless Russian bombardment of civilian areas of Ukraine and the country’s power grid, and Kyiv’s almost daily long-range drone attacks on war-related assets on Russian soil.
The negotiators heading to Geneva have the tough task of finding compromises that are palatable to both Moscow and Kyiv.
Medinsky, who headed Moscow’s team of negotiators in the first direct peace talks with Ukraine in Istanbul in March 2022, is returning to lead Moscow’s delegation.
The previous two rounds of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi reportedly focused on military issues, such as a possible buffer zone and ceasefire monitoring.
The return of Medinsky, who has pushed Putin’s maximalist conditions for peace, could mark a shift toward political issues in the next round of talks.
Ukraine’s delegation will again be led by Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council chief.
It was not clear which American officials would be in Geneva. In the UAE capital, the Trump administration was represented by envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
This article includes reporting by The Associated Press.
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