Thread by @DAlperovitch

My take on today’s US-RU talks in Geneva 🧵

Ryabkov, the head of RU delegation, went out of his way to deescalate the rhetoric and say that the US delegation came to have a serious discussion. That’s clearly a positive given the quite radical statements coming out of Putin, Lavrov and even Ryabkov prior to the talks

Ryabkov insisted that there is no intention to attack Ukraine. However, I would not read too much into it. Even if he is telling the truth, it’s unlikely that he would be told of such plans (MID is rarely kept in the loop)

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1480578900174508035

Ryabkov insisted that troops on the border are just for exercises, which is clearly false. Not clear that they have any plans to pull them back anytime soon

Russians again insisted that their ‘top issue’ is legal guarantees that Ukraine (and Georgia) will never join NATO, a non-starter for US and NATO

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1480587281660530690

However, they seem open to longer term discussions on these and other issues and the previous heated rhetoric about the need for immediate resolution has gone away

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1480583650118877187

Of course, they can’t keep the troops mobilized in such numbers near Ukraine’s border forever, so this is another positive sign that engaging in such talks may deescalate the situation and reduce risk of invasion

So TL;DR: A few somewhat positive signs from the lowering of the temperature in public comments from Moscow but nothing substantial has changed yet on the ground that reduces the risk of war. Both sides open to more talks past this week but nothing concrete seems to be scheduled