Russia, Ukraine Talks Falter as Scope for Diplomatic Solution Narrows

He said the talks would likely continue among more junior officials until sufficient progress could be made to work toward a summit of the countries’ leaders, a goal he said was unrealistic at present.

“The Ukrainians presented a very hard position,” Mr. Kozak said. He praised earlier efforts by Western leaders such as French President

Emmanuel Macron,

who visited his Russian counterpart

Vladimir Putin

on Monday, but said that the Ukrainian delegation was unwilling to repeat the language of the 2015 Minsk-2 accord that stopped most of the hostilities in its Donbas region.

“My impression was that the Western diplomacy had no impact on the Ukrainian position in the talks,” said Mr. Kozak, who is deputy head of the presidential administration of the Kremlin.

He said the Ukrainian side asked for a break in the talks to consider their position. The French and German representatives, who sponsor the negotiations in the so-called Normandy format, agreed to work toward a relaunch of the talks.

Andriy Yermak,

Kyiv’s representative at the talks, said, “There are major differences. But there’s a willingness to continue talking.”

Mr. Yermak said future discussions would likely focus on prisoner exchanges between Kyiv and Russian-backed separatists and the reopening of crossings between Ukraine and the territories under rebel control.

The talks come amid rising tensions on Ukraine’s borders. Russia and ally Belarus are conducting joint military exercises that Russia’s Defense Ministry has described as training to repel “foreign aggression.” Ukraine’s armed forces began their own drills along the Russian and Belarusian borders in response.

In a sign of the gulf that still separates the West and Russia, Russian Foreign Minister

Sergei Lavrov

was critical of the conversation when he emerged from a meeting with his British counterpart on Thursday.

Moscow wanted “not just excuses, but a concrete response from the West to our proposals, which presuppose the inadmissibility of strengthening someone’s security at the expense of someone else’s security,” Mr. Lavrov said. “I cannot say that we have any points of contact here.”

In Brussels, U.K. Prime Minister

Boris Johnson

told reporters after meeting with NATO Secretary-General

Jens Stoltenberg

on Thursday that a war in Ukraine would be “pointless, tragic and vastly economically costly to Russia.”

Thursday’s Berlin meeting was a follow-up to talks in Paris last month that sought to revive the 2015 Minsk-2 agreement, which was never implemented because Moscow and Kyiv diverged over what its clauses meant and the sequence in which they should be applied.

In Moscow’s reading, the Minsk-2 accord could give Russian proxies a say, if not outright veto power, over the policies of a newly federalized Ukraine, potentially precluding the country from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union in the future. That is something Ukraine opposes.

Mr. Macron has been the leading force pushing for the revival of the Minsk-2 agreement, traveling to Moscow and Kyiv this week. French officials see it as a promising path to de-escalation as Moscow pushes broader security demands viewed as untenable by the U.S. and its allies.

While Ukrainian President

Volodymyr Zelensky

has limited room to make unpopular concessions, Ukraine’s key goal is to make sure these negotiations go on, averting the possible breakout of hostilities.

The Minsk-2 agreement, which calls for decentralizing political power in Ukraine and constitutional changes in coordination with the representatives of Donbas areas that are occupied by Russia, is unpopular in Ukraine. Previous attempts to pass legislation implementing parts of the agreement sparked deadly clashes outside the Ukrainian parliament and waves of protests.

Fifty-four percent of respondents to a December survey conducted by Ukrainian pollster Rating supported the negotiation of new terms with Russia with the help of international mediators. Twelve percent said Kyiv should comply with the terms of the agreements.

Kyiv has denied that it is under pressure from Western allies to implement Minsk-2, and it has refused to engage in direct talks with Russian-installed authorities in Donbas.

Asked during a joint press conference with Mr. Macron on Monday whether the Minsk-2 agreement had a chance of surviving, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine’s government was dragging its feet and would have to accept its terms.

Previous Normandy-format talks in Paris lasted for eight hours and involved Mr. Yermak, who heads Mr. Zelensky’s office, and Mr. Kozak, who is Russia’s point person on Ukraine. At the time, unlike now, the delegations agreed on a joint statement that called for an unconditional cessation of violence in Donbas.

—Ann M. Simmons in Moscow, Noemie Bisserbe in Paris and James Marson in Brussels contributed to this article.

Write to Bojan Pancevski at bojan.pancevski@wsj.com