Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that discussing any Western security guarantees for Ukraine without Russian involvement was a “road to nowhere”.<\/p>\n
NATO military chiefs were set Wednesday to discuss the details of eventual security guarantees for Ukraine amid efforts to broker an end to Russia’s offensive.<\/p>\n
But Lavrov warned that “seriously discussing security guarantees without the Russian Federation is a utopia, a road to nowhere.<\/p>\n
“We cannot agree that it is now suggested to solve collective security issues without the Russian Federation,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n
President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and the ensuing conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and forced millions to flee their homes.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump, who spoke Monday with his Russian counterpart, said Putin had agreed to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and accept some Western security guarantees for Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Lavrov said in their phone call Putin had only told Trump he would “think about raising the level of” talks on Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Lavrov said any summit between Putin and Zelensky “must be prepared in the most meticulous way” so the meeting does not lead to a “deterioration” of the situation around the conflict.<\/p>\n
Lavrov also accused European leaders — some of whom also visited the White House on Monday — of making “clumsy attempts” to change the US president’s position on Ukraine.<\/p>\n
“We have only seen aggressive escalation of the situation and rather clumsy attempts to change the position of the US president,” he said, referring to Monday’s meeting.<\/p>\n
“We did not hear any constructive ideas from the Europeans there,” Lavrov added.<\/p>\n
Lavrov also said the West’s “confrontational position, a position to continue the war, does not find understanding in the current US administration, which… seeks to help eliminate the root causes of the conflict”.<\/p>\n
Post-war security is a key concern for Ukraine after more than three years of Russian offensive.<\/p>\n
Moscow has long said it will not tolerate Kyiv joining NATO and has been hostile to the idea of Western troops being deployed to the war-torn country.<\/p>\n
bur\/dt\/jj<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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