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Amidst the carnage and drama of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began last Thursday, representatives of both governments agreed to meet for peace talks on Monday along the Belarusian border with Ukraine.

Moods were pessimistic heading into the talks, however, as Ukraine’s stated goal is an immediate cease-fire and withdrawal of Russian forces that would completely stymie the goals of the Russian delegation, which did not announce an official position, but clearly will want something along the lines of holding onto what gains they have made.

“I suggest we wait for the talks. I would not declare any negotiating positions,” said Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov in a press conference, the New York Post reported.

Those gains have been paltry compared to what Russia had likely hoped to accomplish. Almost all commentary was in agreement that Russian President Vladimir Putin was best served by a rapid conquest of Ukraine, to be completed before the world had time to process and react to the aggression. As of Monday, the resistance of the Ukrainians has made those hopes seem farther than ever, and key cities like Kyiv and Kharkiv remain in Ukrainian control in spite of repeated assaults by Russia’s best airborne and armored forces, combined with repeated bombardment by artillery and aircraft and missiles.

In spite of these repeated failures, Russia has nevertheless doubled down on its position, using a sort of circular logic to justify the invasion retroactively: the weapons sent by the West to aid Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion are proof that Russia needed to invade Ukraine to prevent Western weapons from being sent.

Peskov also took the opportunity to rail against the European Union (EU), which he accused of belligerent behavior towards Russia, saying that the West’s (and particularly Europe’s) aid to Ukraine was an “extremely dangerous and destabilizing factor.”

The Kremlin also reiterated its usual position that the Ukrainians were using civilians as human shields but yet again failed to provide any evidence to substantiate that claim, along with the assertion that Ukraine is run by drug dealers and Neo-Nazis (the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish.) Putin has stuck with his insistence that it will “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine by any means necessary, and has accused Ukraine of causing a “genocide” of Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine (at time of writing no evidence of this genocide has been forthcoming.)

Another Kremlin official, Vladimir Medinsky, who is an aide to Putin and part of the Russian delegation to the peace talks, said to reporters that Russia’s leadership “definitely have an interest in reaching some agreements as soon as possible.”

That interest may be the widespread international backlash, and the humiliation of Russia’s floundering armies stalled outside Kyiv and other key cities.

Kyiv Independent reported late Monday morning, EST time, that the talks have now ended “with no results,” and that the two sides agreed to meet again in the coming days.

⚡️The Ukraine-Russia peace talks ended with no results, the two sides agreed to meet at the Polish-Belarus border in the upcoming days.

— Oleksiy Sorokin (@mrsorokaa) February 28, 2022

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