State Department Spokesperson Ned Price and Undersecretary Victoria Nuland held a news briefing on Tuesday.
Watch the briefing in the player above.
The United States and Russia locked horns over Ukraine and other security issues Monday with no sign of progress from either side at highly anticipated strategic talks.
"They were preliminary discussions, and the idea was for the United States and in our hope, the Russian Federation to come with viable, practical, reciprocal ideas to put those on the table and to see if there were the potential for progress," said Price.
"We did not intend this to be a forum where certainly decisions were reached, where any breakthroughs could be achieved or really even contemplated."
Low expectations from both Washington and Moscow about the high-stakes session in Geneva appeared to have been met as senior diplomats from the two countries emerged without offering any hint of success.
Neither characterized the meeting as a complete failure, but neither did they offer any easing of the increasingly worrisome standoff over Russia's military buildup on its border with Ukraine that the West sees as a fundamental threat to European security.
Nor was there any indication of movement on other, perhaps less-explosive matters that have vexed the U.S.-Russia relationship.
Moscow insists on guarantees to halt NATO's eastward expansion and even roll back the military alliance's deployments in Eastern Europe, while Washington firmly rejects the demands as a nonstarter.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has described NATO expansion to Ukraine and other former Soviet states as a "red line" for Moscow, demanding binding guarantees from the West that they wouldn't become members of the alliance.
Moscow has sought to wrest a string of concessions from the U.S. and its Western allies, and has massed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraine in steps that have raised concerns about a possible military intervention there.
The meeting was part of "Strategic Security Dialogue" talks on arms control and other broad issues launched by Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden at a June summit in the Swiss city. Talks between Russia and NATO are planned Wednesday in Brussels followed by a meeting in Vienna of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Thursday.
The U.S. has played down hopes of significant progress and said some Russian demands – like a possible halt to NATO expansion – go against countries' sovereign rights to set up their own security arrangements and are nonnegotiable.
But U.S. officials have expressed openness to other ideas, like curtailing possible future deployments of offensive missiles in Ukraine and putting limits on American and NATO military exercises in Eastern Europe – if Russia is willing to back off on Ukraine.
Price also spoke about Kazakhstan, where nearly 8,000 people were detained by police during protests that descended into violence last week and marked the worst unrest the former Soviet nation has faced since gaining independence 30 years ago.