Russia says ‘no deadlines’ to end Ukraine war

MOSCOW (TIP): Moscow is in no hurry to reach a deal to end the war in Ukraine, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested in comments to state media on Thursday, Feb 26
Negotiators from both countries were in Geneva on Thursday for separate talks with US officials, part of a fraught negotiation process being pushed by President Donald Trump in a bid to end the fighting.
Several rounds of discussions have failed to clinch a deal, with Moscow insisting on hardline territorial and political demands that Kyiv has ruled out as tantamount to capitulation.
Top officials in Russia on Thursday again pushed back on the idea a deal was close.
“Have you heard anything from us about deadlines? We have no deadlines, we have tasks. We are getting them done,” state news agencies quoted Lavrov as saying.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said it was too early to make “forecasts” or say at what stage the peace process was at.
“It would be a big mistake to try right now to define some kind of stage or make some kind of forecasts. I don’t want to make those mistakes,” he told state media.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly said a meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin is needed to agree on the key sticking points, like the fate of territory in eastern Ukraine that Russia is fighting to seize control of.
Peskov repeated on Thursday that Russia will not agree to a summit until the very end of talks, and only to sign off on a deal thrashed out between the negotiating teams.
Russia, Ukraine exchange
bodies of killed soldiers
Russia has handed over the remains of 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers to Kyiv, a Moscow official said Thursday, with Ukraine returning the bodies of 35 Russians in exchange.
The two sides regularly exchange the remains of troops killed in combat, one of the few areas of cooperation.
“The bodies of 1,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers were given to Ukraine. Russia was given the bodies of 35 dead Russian fighters,” Moscow’s top negotiator Vladimir Medinsky, said on social media.
He posted a photo showing men in white overalls and blue gloves lifting a white body bag from the back of a refrigerated truck. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been killed in the four-year war, triggered when Moscow launched its full-scale offensive against Ukraine in February 2022.
Negotiators from both countries were in Geneva on Thursday for separate talks with US officials, part of a fraught negotiation process being pushed by President Donald Trump in a bid to end the fighting.

Cuba says 4 killed in speedboat shooting were attempting to infiltrate the country
February 27, 2026
HAVANA (TIP): Cuba’s government said late Wednesday that the 10 passengers on a boat that opened fire on its soldiers were armed Cubans living in the U.S. who were trying to infiltrate the island and unleash terrorism.
The announcement came hours after Cuba said its soldiers killed four people and wounded six others aboard a Florida-registered speed boat that had entered Cuban waters and opened fire on the soldiers first, injuring one Cuban officer.
Cuba’s government said the majority of the 10 people on the boat “have a known history of criminal and violent activity.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had told reporters earlier that he was made aware of the incident and that the U.S. is now gathering its own information to determine if the victims were American citizens or permanent residents.
“We have various different elements of the U.S. government that are trying to identify elements of the story that may not be provided to us now,” Rubio said while at the airport in Basseterre, St. Kitts, where he was attending a regional summit with Caribbean leaders.
The Cuban government identified two of the boat passengers as Amijail Sánchez González and Leordan Enrique Cruz Gómez, who are wanted by Cuban authorities “based on their involvement in the promotion, planning, organization, financing, support or commission of actions carried out in the national territory or in other countries, in connection with acts of terrorism.”
The government said it also had arrested Duniel Hernández Santos, adding that he was “sent from the United States to guarantee the reception of the armed infiltration, who at this time has confessed to his actions.”
The Associated Press was not immediately able to independently verify that information.
Cuba’s government said it obtained the details about the passengers aboard the boat from the suspects detained following the shootout.
It identified seven of the 10 passengers, including Conrado Galindo Sariol, José Manuel Rodríguez Castelló, Cristian Ernesto Acosta Guevara and Roberto Álvarez Ávila.
On Thursday, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, said the Cuban government erroneously identified Roberto Azcorra Consuegra as one of the boat passengers late Wednesday. He said Azcorra was not aboard the boat.