Trump and Zelensky spoke before Ukraine-US talks in Geneva

(Patria) - US President Donald Trump spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of a new round of talks on Thursday aimed at ending the Russian invasion, both sides announced on Wednesday, AFP reports.

A White House official did not give AFP further details about the conversation, which followed a day before Ukrainian and US envoys were to meet, ahead of new trilateral talks with Russia expected in early March.

However, Zelensky wrote on social media that he had spoken with Trump and that his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were on the phone call.

"Our teams are working intensively and I thanked them for their work and active participation in the negotiations and efforts to end the war," he added.

According to the advisor to the Ukrainian president, Dmytro Litvin, the conversation "lasted about thirty minutes".

Ukraine's chief negotiator Rustem Umerov will meet with Witkoff and Kushner in Geneva on Thursday, Kyiv announced.

Russia's state news agency Tass later announced that Kremlin envoy for economic issues, Kirill Dmitriev, also plans to be in Geneva.

"Dmitriev plans to arrive in Geneva on Thursday to continue talks with the Americans on economic issues," an unnamed source stated.

The meetings are the latest round of talks led by Trump, which have so far failed to achieve significant progress in ending Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II.

Washington advocates for an end to the war caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine four years ago, which has left hundreds of thousands dead and devastated cities, especially in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Preparatory talks

Zelensky said that in his call with Trump, he "discussed the issues that our representatives will address tomorrow in Geneva during a bilateral meeting, as well as preparations for the next meeting of full negotiating teams in a trilateral format at the very beginning of March".

"We expect this meeting to create an opportunity to move the talks to the leaders' level. President Trump supports this series of steps. This is the only way to resolve all complex and sensitive issues and finally end the war," he added.

The Ukrainian leader has already stated that a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, should be held to resolve the most difficult issues in the negotiations.

The talks, based on a US plan presented late last year, have stalled primarily over the fate of Donbas, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine that is the epicenter of the fighting.

Russia advocates for full control over the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine and has threatened to take it by force if Kyiv does not yield at the negotiating table.

Ukraine has rejected this demand and signaled that it will not sign an agreement without security guarantees that will deter Russia from invading again.