INTERNATIONAL: Russia has said on Tuesday that there is no reason to be optimistic after the first round of talks with the United States on the Ukraine crisis and the demands for security guarantees from the West.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that the talks were positive, however, added that Monday's talks in Geneva had been held in an open, substantive and direct manner. He has also mentioned that Russia was not setting deadlines but would not be satisfied with an "endless dragging out of this process."

Russia has massed troops near Ukraine's border and demanded the US-led NATO alliance rule out admitting the former Soviet state as a member or expanding further eastward.

Washington has said it cannot accept these demands, although it is willing to engage on other aspects of Russia's proposals by discussing missile deployments or limits on the size of military exercises.

Peskov has mentioned the situation would be clearer after two further rounds of talks that Russia is due to hold this week - with NATO in Brussels on Wednesday and at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna on Thursday.

Russian and U.S. negotiators gave no sign of narrowing their differences in briefings to reporters after the first session in Geneva.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman, has said that they were firm in pushing back on security proposals that are simply non-starters to the United States.

The United States has urged Moscow to reverse its build-up of an estimated 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine, which has prompted Ukrainian and Western concerns about a possible new invasion, eight years after Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ryabkov has made clear that Russia had no intention of attacking Ukraine.