After a day of intense talks, Russian officials said they will continue discussions with the U.S.

The scene in Geneva: a low-key dinner, Cold War-style talks and more Russian threats.

See how Russian troops are poised near Ukraine’s border.

Despite deep ties, the threat of military action turns more Ukrainians against Russia.

What’s missing from the early talks over Ukraine.

A Times reporter recently traveled to the front line in eastern Ukraine.

GENEVA — American and Russian officials concluded an intense round of negotiations in Switzerland on Monday aimed at finding a diplomatic path to ease tensions as Russia threatens military action in Ukraine.

Russian officials said they told their American counterparts they had no plans to invade Ukraine, in a series of talks that lasted nearly eight hours.

“We had the feeling that the American side took the Russian proposals very seriously and studied them deeply.”.

Wendy Sherman, the lead American diplomat, said the United States was “pushing back on security proposals that are simply non-starters for the United States,” including Russia’s demands that Ukraine not be admitted into NATO, and that the alliance end its security cooperation with Ukraine.

“We will not forgo bilateral cooperation with sovereign states that wish to work with the United States.

Sherman said, and the United States made clear that it is open to discussing “ways we can set reciprocal limits on the size and scope of military exercises and to improve transparency about those exercises.”.

The two sides discussed the possibility of reviving the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which the United States abandoned in 2019, after years of accusing Russia of violating its terms.

In December, Russia published a proposal for two agreements with the United States and NATO that would roll back Western military activity in Ukraine and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, in essence re-establishing a sphere of Russian influence in what used to be parts of the Soviet Union.

Russia insists that its demands go well beyond arms control, and involve a wholesale redrawing of the security map in Europe, which the Kremlin claims the West forced upon a weak Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

If Russia does not get what it wants, President Vladimir V.

The American and Russian delegations, including diplomats and military officials from both countries, gathered at the American Mission just up the street from the grand Geneva offices of the United Nations.

Outside the compound, Russian, Ukrainian and American reporters awaited glimpses of the negotiators arriving in a small armada of luxury vehicles, while local parents and children squeezed by on the narrow sidewalk, on their way to the nearby International School.

It was America’s turn to host the Geneva talks in the protocol of great-power diplomacy between the United States and Russia that increasingly resembles the high-stakes negotiations of the Cold War.

Ryabkov of Russia previously met in Geneva to discuss arms control last July and September, alternating between Russian and American ground.

American officials said over the weekend that they could not be sure whether their Russian counterparts were serious about conducting real negotiations, or whether they were simply using the talks to sow discord in the West and justify military action against Ukraine.

“We fully expect that the Russian side will make public comments following the meeting on Monday that will not reflect the true nature of the discussions that took place,” a senior State Department official warned in a press briefing ahead of the talks.

Ryabkov kept up the Kremlin’s recent rhetoric of vague but ominous threats, rejecting the notion that Russia was prepared to make any concessions.

separating Ukrainian and.

Military analysts say Russian troops.

in Eastern Ukraine.

Military analysts say Russian troops.

in Eastern Ukraine.

in Eastern Ukraine.

in Eastern Ukraine.

A buildup of Russian forces near the border with Ukraine has raised concerns among Western and Ukrainian officials that the Kremlin might be preparing for significant military action, possibly an invasion.

Russia currently has about 100,000 troops on the Ukraine border, according to Ukrainian and Western officials.

Putin of Russia has decided to launch an attack, analysts say the country is well on its way toward constructing the architecture needed for a significant military intervention in Ukraine.

The maps represent a snapshot of current Russian positions, as well as broad estimates of the number of troops and kinds of equipment deployed within striking distance of Ukraine.

It is based on information obtained by Ukrainian and Western officials as well as independent military analysts and satellite imagery.

KYIV, Ukraine — After massing troops near Ukraine’s borders, Russia is striving to win security concessions from Western countries in negotiations this week.

Since 2014, the start of a conflict that has killed more than 13,000 Ukrainians on both sides, public opinion in the former Soviet republic has turned against Russia.

Russia has annexed Crimea and supported separatist uprisings in Donetsk and Luhansk, meaning that votes from these areas, which had a combined prewar population of about 6 million, no longer contribute to a more balanced central government foreign policy on Russia.

Ukrainian views of Russia were not always so negative

To be sure, Ukraine, perched between Russia and the West, remains divided on questions of geopolitical leanings, and polls have fluctuated over the years

Last year, as Russia stepped up its hostile rhetoric, that number was back up to 80 percent

Putin: Keep your troops out of Ukraine, or face harsh economic reprisals

and Russian officials meet for security talks in Geneva, President Biden hopes to have more influence over Mr

Biden has made an explicit threat to take more punishing economic action than Mr

Putin’s subsequent instigation of a bloody separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine

military action

Trump’s “America First” foreign policy, which raised questions about how far the United States would go to defend its allies and enforce its vision of international rules

KYIV, Ukraine — As the high-stakes diplomatic negotiations between the United States and Russia over the fate of Ukraine got underway on Monday in Geneva, one player was notably absent: Ukraine

The absence of any concrete role for Ukraine in the talks has clearly unnerved the government in Kyiv

would not intervene militarily if Russia invades, Ukraine has quietly pursued its own negotiating track with Moscow

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has decided not to rely wholly on the U.S.-led negotiations, announcing a separate, Ukrainian diplomatic initiative with Russia in late December, the specifics of which were later published in a Russian newspaper

The 10-point Ukrainian plan begins with three confidence-building steps — a cease-fire in the war in eastern Ukraine, an exchange of prisoners and the opening of crossing points for civilians on the front line in the eastern Ukraine war — then moves to political issues

To date, none of the diplomatic talks with Russia, whether with the United States or Ukraine, have slowed the stream of ominous statements from Russian officials that diplomats and analysts worry could be used to justify military action or prepare the Russian population for a war

For years, the conflict in Ukraine has been a slow, bloody grind that set in after Ukraine and Russia fought to a stalemate over territory seized by Russian-backed forces in 2014

Fighters have been dug into an ant farm of muddy trenches along the so-called line of contact, a roughly 250-mile-long barricade of fortifications in the in the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine

For years, Ukrainian troops have been fighting a grinding war of attrition with Russian backed separatists from an ant farm of muddy trenches in the east

MOSCOW — While tensions in Ukraine have gripped the West in recent weeks, in Russia the dramatic events in Kazakhstan and a 10-day New Year’s holiday have overshadowed preparations for the latest round of diplomatic talks that kicked off on Monday in Geneva

State-owned Russia-24 television broadcast a 17-minute long spot on Sunday evening, emphasizing to viewers that Russia “threatens no one.”

Remarkably absent from the program: any mention of Russia’s buildup of more than 100,000 troops on its western border with Ukraine — or much discussion of its neighbor at all

The presenter made an argument often repeated in Russia, that NATO supposedly broke its promise not to expand eastward in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union

Putin of Russia and his close associates have telegraphed a singular fixation on Ukraine

Putin of Russia sent troops to the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan last week to try to extinguish the latest in a series of dangerous fires to engulf the lands of the former Soviet Union, territory that Moscow views as its own sphere of influence but has struggled to keep calm

The arrival in Kazakhstan of more than 2,000 troops from a Russian-led military alliance was the fourth time in just two years that Moscow has flexed its muscle in neighboring states — Belarus, Armenia and Ukraine being the other three — that the West has long tried to woo