GENEVA: Russian and US diplomats held talks behind closed doors in Geneva on Thursday, the latest round of discussions between the world’s top two nuclear powers following a June summit between US President Joe Biden and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
US State Department number two Wendy Sherman and Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov were expected to meet for most of the day.
The talks began around 10:00a.m., said a member of Russia’s mission to the UN.
State Department disarmament chief Bonnie Jenkins had earlier said that Washington hoped “concrete steps” would emerge from the talks in Geneva.
Beyond disarmament, the two sides were expected to discuss new technologies, space and artificial intelligence, Swiss news agency ATS reported.
Thursday’s talks were being held at Russia’s UN mission, after the last round in late July was hosted by the Americans a few hundred meters (yards) away.
Arms control was at the top of the agenda at that exchange.
At their June 16 summit, Biden and Putin said that it was vital to keep talking despite the differences that divide the two nuclear giants.
Even at the height of the Cold War, Moscow and Washington stayed in contact to prevent a conflict breaking out, they said.
US and Russia launch new round of talks in Geneva
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US and Russia launch new round of talks in Geneva
- State Department disarmament chief Bonnie Jenkins had earlier said that Washington hoped ‘concrete steps’ would emerge from the talks
Four killed in Ukraine as Moscow and Kyiv exchange drone strikes
- Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in Kharkiv
- Synegubov said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district
KHARKIV, Ukraine: Russian and Ukrainian drone strikes killed at least four people Wednesday, officials said, as the war between the neighbors dragged on for more than four years with no diplomatic breakthrough in sight.
The latest attacks came with a third round of three-party talks derailed by the war in the Middle East, despite pressure from Washington on both sides to agree to an elusive peace deal.
Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which lies close to the Russian border, was encircled at the beginning of Russia’s invasion four years ago.
It has been attacked almost daily since Moscow’s forces were pushed back later in 2022.
The governor of the wider region, Oleg Synegubov, said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district.
“A civilian enterprise caught fire as a result of the enemy strike,” he said, adding that three women and four men had been hospitalized.
Another Russian drone wounded 20 people in the afternoon, after hitting a civilian minibus in the southeastern city of Kherson, Ukrainian prosecutors said.
In the Russian-occupied part of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-installed authorities said two civilians had been killed in their car by a Ukrainian drone strike on the frontline town of Vasylivka.
“The danger of repeated strikes remains,” Kremlin-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky said.
