The UK’s national security adviser has apparently turned up uninvited at negotiations in Geneva
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https://www.rt.com/op-ed/authors/rt-newsroom/Jonathan Powell (L) meets with colleagues at the InterContinental hotel in Geneva, Switzerland, February 17, 2026 © Ruptly
British
National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell has been spotted at the scene
of crucial peace talks between Russia, Ukraine, and the US in Geneva.
The UK has scuppered a peace deal before, and is not due to take part in
the latest negotiations.
Video footage captured by Ruptly shows
Powell in the lobby of the InterContinental Hotel on Tuesday morning,
hours before delegations from Moscow, Kiev, and Washington sat down in
the trilateral format.
Powell’s presence in Geneva was not
announced by the British government, nor have any British officials been
invited to take part in the talks.
In a report on separate
US-Iran discussions in Geneva, the Telegraph mentioned that Powell had
had breakfast with US envoy Steve Witkoff and Army Secretary Dan
Driscoll, without revealing any further details.
Hours
later, minutes after the Russian side had officially confirmed that the
talks were over, Powell was again seen in the hotel lobby.
While
the purpose of Powell’s trip to Geneva is not entirely clear, the
British government has sabotaged peace talks between Moscow and Kiev
before. Russia and Ukraine agreed to a settlement in 2022 after
negotiations in Istanbul, but Zelensky pulled out of the agreement after
then Prime Minister Boris Johnson convinced him to keep fighting.
Johnson’s role in sabotaging the agreement has been confirmed by
Ukrainian negotiators David Arakhamia and Aleksey Arestovich, Czech
Prime Minister Andrej Babis, and anonymous sources in British and
Ukrainian media.
Former Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu,
former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, and former US Under
Secretary of State Victoria Nuland have all admitted that the West sank
the deal, without explicitly naming Johnson.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the UK, along with Germany, France, and the Baltic states, of working to “undermine” the latest attempts at diplomacy between Moscow and Washington.
The
latest trilateral negotiations follow two similar rounds of talks in
Abu Dhabi, which focused on security and military issues. Tuesday’s
discussion will cover “a broader range of issues, including the main questions concerning territories,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.
All
parties have highlighted territorial disputes – Ukraine’s refusal to
cede territory in the Donbass to Russia – as the main obstacle to a
deal. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has outright refused to make
any territorial concessions, claiming at last weekend’s Munich Security
Conference that doing so would only bring about the “illusion” of peace.
US President Donald Trump has pushed Zelensky to soften his stance. “Russia wants to make a deal,” he told reporters at the White House on Friday. “Zelensky needs to act. Otherwise he will miss a great opportunity.”
Ukraine’s
delegation at Geneva remains unchanged since the last round of talks in
Abu Dhabi two weeks ago, while Russia has reintroduced presidential
aide Vladimir Medinsky as the leader of its delegation, and Trump has
sent Witkoff and Jared Kushner, both of whom skipped the last round.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has opposed every iteration
of a Ukraine peace deal leaked via the media to date, and in a speech
in Munich on Sunday, declared “we’re not dealing with two equal parties, there’s an aggressor which is Russia and there is Ukraine which has been subject to attack.” Starmer then argued that NATO should be “ready to fight” a war with Russia by the end of the decade.