A nearly six-hour “businesslike” conversation between American and Russian diplomats in Geneva on Monday outwardly did little to resolve the dangerous military standoff along the Russia-Ukraine border and rising tensions across Eastern Europe, with top officials from both nations publicly downplaying the talks and insisting that the other side had to make the first move.

With 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border, Russian President Vladimir Putin is demanding major security concessions from the U.S.

Sherman said after her meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov that the talks Monday did not even rise to the level of formal negotiation.

As a first step to de-escalate the crisis, Russia must pull its troops back from the Ukrainian border, Ms.

Sherman said.

The powder keg in Eastern Europe presents a critical foreign policy test for President Biden.

Biden was vice president when Russia forcibly annexed Ukraine‘s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will meet with Russian officials later this week.

Sherman said the U.S.

limit its troop presence and weapons deployments in Eastern Europe and that Georgia and Ukraine never be allowed to formally join NATO.

Administration officials did say that Washington is willing to negotiate on missile placements and the size and scope of military exercises in Eastern Europe.

Ryabkov, one of the Kremlin’s most experienced diplomatic hands, said Russia will not budge on its insistence that Ukraine and Georgia — former Soviet republics — can never be allowed to join NATO.

As President Putin said on many occasions, ‘We cannot backpedal.

should use the meetings this week to press Russia on other issues, including a new intermediate-range nuclear weapons treaty or commitments from Moscow to stop backing pro-Russian separatists battling Ukrainian troops in the country’s disputed Donbas region.

Asked directly whether Russia indicated any willingness to de-escalate the military standoff, Ms.

Sherman said it’s not clear.