Ukraine Russia war live: White House hits back at Zelensky after ‘difficult’ peace talks end in two hours

The Kremlin said on Thursday that it had nothing to add about this week’s peace talks on Ukraine in Geneva beyond what its chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky already said.

Medinsky said on Wednesday that the U.S.-mediated talks had been difficult but business-like, and that a new round would be held soon.

Ukrainian drones hit a Russian oil depot in the western region of Pskov, causing explosions and a fire, an official from Ukraine’s SBU security service said on Thursday.

“The destruction of oil depots directly affects the enemy’s ability to conduct combat operations, advance and move staff reserves. Such operations are part of a systematic weakening of Russia’s military potential,” the official told the Reuters news agency.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said he knows “more about Russia” than Vladimir Putin knows about Ukraine, because the Russian president has only been to “big cities” in Ukraine.

The comments came in a post in which he hit out at Russia for its “historical s***”, in which he was referring to lectures about history from Moscow amid negotiations over peace in Ukraine.

“I know more about his country than he knows about Ukraine. Simply because I have been to Russia – to many cities. And I knew a lot of people there. He has never been to Ukraine this many times,” Mr Zelensky said.

“He was only in big cities. I went to small cities. From the northern part to the southern part. Everywhere. I know their mentality.”

The next round of Russia-Ukraine peace talks will again be held in Switzerland, Volodymyr Zelensky has said in an interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored.

“I just wanted to underline that the next meeting will be also in Switzerland. That’s what I have information for today. Of course, our group will come back, and I will have more open briefs than I had by phone,@ he said.

The Ukrainian president said it is positive that a meeting was held in Switzerland.

“This is very important. I always raise this, with all respect to the Middle East and other countries, but I think, if the war is in Europe, then we need to find a place and people, Europeans, they have to feel that this is aggression against us and against Europe.”

German chancellor Friedrich Merz has offered a grim outlook for ongoing peace negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv.

He warns that the “bitter truth” is that “rational and humanitarian arguments will not convince Putin” to end Russia’s four-year war in Ukraine.

“In my view, this war will only end when one of the two sides is exhausted, either militarily or economically,” he told newspapers Neue Berliner Redaktionsgesellschaft (NBR) and Rheinpfalz.

The goal of European efforts must now be focussed on ensuring “that the Russian state cannot continue to wage war militarily or finance it economically”.

He said it will be “virtually impossible” for Europe to ever restore normal relations with Putin, adding: “When I look at this regime and its furious terror, I have little hope.”

Volodymyr Zelensky has now blasted Russia’s “historical s***” during negotiations, which he says is just a delay tactic to prevent a real end to the war.

“I don’t need historical s* to end this war and move to diplomacy. Because it’s just a delay tactic,” the Ukrainian president wrote on X.

“I read no less history books than [Russian president Vladimir] Putin,” he said, adding: “The only thing that I want to speak about with him is that I think that we need to resolve it in the most successful way. I mean to end this war quickly. That is why I want to speak only about such things.”

Russian emergency services said on Thursday that a fire at Ilsky refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region that broke out on Tuesday after a drone attack had been extinguished.

Authorities said on Tuesday that a reservoir with oil products was damaged, in the latest of Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.

Ilsky refinery, which has a capacity of around 138,000 barrels of oil per day, has been repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian drones.

The third round of US-Ukrainian-Russian talks in Geneva concluded without a breakthrough on Wednesday.

Here’s what you need to know:

Volodymyr Zelensky has reiterated that Ukraine will not cede territory to Russia or withdraw from land it currently controls, as US-brokered peace talks remain deadlocked ahead of the war’s fourth anniversary.

In an interview with British broadcaster Piers Morgan, Zelensky said the defence of the Donbas had come at a devastating human cost.

“Thousands, dozens of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed on this direction, defending this part of Ukraine,” Zelensky said.