Sawt Falasteen - US, Ukraine to meet in Geneva after overnight Russian strikes

The meeting will bring together Ukraine's lead negotiator Rustem Umerov and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, with further trilateral talks involving Russia expected to take place in early March.

The United States is pushing for an end to the war -- the deadliest in Europe since World War II -- but has so far failed to broker a compromise between Moscow and Kyiv on key issues, including territory.

Kyiv hopes tangible progress in Geneva could pave the way for talks at the leaders' level, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says is needed for any breakthrough.

"This is the only way to resolve all the complex and sensitive issues and finally end the war," Zelensky said in a call with US President Donald Trump ahead of the meetings in Geneva.

- Drone and missile attacks -

Hours before the meeting, Russian forces launched some 420 drones and 39 missiles at Ukraine, wounding more than two dozen people in at least six different regions, according to authorities.

AFP journalists heard several explosions in central Kyiv shortly after authorities warned Russia had launched its attack.

The strikes hit an electricity substation in the southern Odesa region, as well as a school building in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, according to officials.

"Destruction has been recorded in eight regions, with many private homes and apartment buildings damaged," Zelensky said.

Also ahead of the meeting, Russia announced that it had returned the bodies of 1,000 killed Ukrainian soldiers to Ukraine, while Moscow received 35 Russian bodies in exchange.

The two sides regularly exchange the remains of killed serviceman, one of the few areas of cooperation between the warring countries.

Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev plans to be in Geneva on Thursday, though there is no indication he plans to meet the Ukrainian side, according to Russian state media.

"Dmitriev plans to arrive in Geneva on Thursday to pursue negotiations with the Americans on economic issues," Russia's TASS news agency cited an unnamed source as saying.

- Preparatory talks -

Zelensky spoke with Trump on Wednesday ahead of the talks, with both Witkoff and Kushner part of the 30-minute call.

Zelensky said on social media that they "discussed the issues that our representatives will address tomorrow in Geneva during the bilateral meeting, as well as preparations for the next meeting of the full negotiating teams in a trilateral format at the very beginning of March".

"We expect this meeting to create an opportunity to move talks to the leaders' level. President Trump supports this sequence of steps," he added.

After first refusing to negotiate with Russia, Zelensky has repeatedly said that the only way of resolving difficult issues, including territory, is through a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

The United States has mediated multiple rounds of talks between the two sides in Abu Dhabi and Geneva, but they remain deadlocked over the fate of the Donbas -- the industrial region in eastern Ukraine that has been the epicentre of the fighting.

Russia is pushing for full control of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, and has threatened to take it by force if Kyiv does not cave at the negotiating table.

But Ukraine has rejected the demand and signalled it would not sign a deal without security guarantees that deter Russia from invading again.

S.Abdullah--SF-PST