Russia swaps GRU chief for Kremlin ideologue Medinsky ahead of Geneva talks with Ukraine

Russia will send Vladimir Medinsky—a Putin aide whom Carnegie's Alexander Baunov called "neither a technocrat nor a specialist, but a highly ideological and inaccurate interpreter of history for a mass audience"—to lead its delegation at the next round of trilateral negotiations with Ukraine and the United States in Geneva on 17-18 February. Medinsky replaces GRU chief Igor Kostyukov, who headed the Russian side in two previous rounds of Abu Dhabi talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced on 13 February.

The last time Medinsky led peace talks—in Istanbul in May 2025—he cited fabricated quotes from Napoleon and Bismarck to argue against a ceasefire, then told Ukrainian negotiators Russia was "ready to fight for another year, two, three—however long it takes," according to The Economist's Oliver Carroll. Zelenskyy called that delegation a sham. Ukrainian officials described Kostyukov's Abu Dhabi team, by contrast, as more "productive." Bloomberg reported in May 2025 that US officials had signaled to Moscow a preference to avoid hardliners like Medinsky at the table. The Kremlin sent him anyway.

Ukraine's delegation remains unchanged. NSDC Secretary Rustem Umerov, who led Ukraine's side in both Abu Dhabi rounds, will again head the team, which includes Presidential Office head Kyrylo Budanov, General Staff chief Andriy Hnatov, and four other senior officials spanning military, political, and security portfolios.

The "pseudo-historian" at the table

Medinsky is not merely a political figure—he is the principal architect of the Kremlin's historical war on Ukraine. He heads Putin's interagency Commission on Historical Education—a body whose membership includes the FSB, SVR, and Prosecutor-General's Office, created to enforce what Putin's decree called "a planned and aggressive approach to defending Russia's national interests." '

As presidential aide, Medinsky supervised the rewriting of Russian school textbooks that portray Ukraine as a hostile "ultra-nationalist neo-Nazi state" and frame the full-scale invasion as defensive necessity.

Medinsky put his philosophy bluntly: "Facts don’t matter very much. Everything begins not with facts, but with interpretations. If you love your homeland, your people, then the story you write will always be positive!"

That worldview has surfaced at the negotiating table. Beyond the fabricated quotes in Istanbul, Medinsky has publicly repeated the Kremlin line that "Ukrainians and Russians are one people"—a formulation the ISW identifies as part of Russia's drive to erase Ukrainian nationhood. Sending the man who denies Ukraine's right to exist to negotiate its future is a signal worth reading carefully.

Missiles between meetings

The diplomatic choreography arrives against a brutal backdrop. On the night of 11-12 February, Russia launched another massive strike on Ukraine's energy infrastructure—24 ballistic missiles, a cruise missile, and over 200 drones, reported ABC News. Zelenskyy, framing the stakes at the ongoing Ramstein meeting, said Russia's strikes "only complicate everything and undermine what are, frankly, already limited diplomatic opportunities."

He also demanded that the entire Ukrainian diplomatic system step up: "If an embassy remains silent, that means its work is unsatisfactory. Ukraine must be heard—heard everywhere in the world."

What Geneva inherits from Abu Dhabi

The previous Abu Dhabi rounds—held on 23-24 January and 4-5 February with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner mediating—produced a prisoner exchange and tentative ceasefire frameworks, reported Al Jazeera. But the core disputes remain unresolved: territory, security guarantees, and the future of occupied regions.

Geneva marks the first time these trilateral talks have moved outside the UAE—and the first under Medinsky's leadership in this format. Whether that shift reflects a genuine recalibration or Moscow's preference for theater over substance will become clear on 17 February.