Russian high diplomat Sergei Lavrov mentioned reaching consensus with the United States on core components of a possible Ukraine peace deal stays troublesome, whereas vowing that Russia won’t ever once more be economically reliant on the West.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who says he needs to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly mentioned he needs to finish the “bloodbath” of the three-year battle in Ukraine, although a deal has but to be agreed.
“It is not easy to agree on the key components of a settlement. They are being discussed,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov mentioned in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper when requested if Moscow and Washington had an settlement on some facets of a attainable peace deal.
“We are well aware of what a mutually beneficial deal looks like, which we have never rejected, and what a deal looks like that could lead us into another trap,” Lavrov mentioned within the interview printed in Tuesday’s version.
The Kremlin mentioned Sunday that it was too early to anticipate outcomes from the restoration of extra regular relations with Washington.
Lavrov mentioned that Russia’s place had been set out clearly by President Vladimir Putin in June 2024, when Putin demanded that Ukraine should formally drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from everything of the territory of 4 Ukrainian areas claimed by Russia.
“We’re talking about the rights of the people who live on these lands. That is why these lands are dear to us. And we cannot give them up, allowing people to be kicked out of there,” Lavrov mentioned.
Russia presently controls a little bit below one-fifth of Ukraine, together with Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and elements of 4 different areas Moscow now claims are a part of Russia – a declare not acknowledged by most international locations.
Lavrov praised Trump’s “common sense” and for saying that earlier U.S. assist of Ukraine’s bid to affix the NATO navy alliance was a significant reason for the battle in Ukraine.
But Russia’s political elite, he mentioned, wouldn’t countenance any strikes that led Russia again towards financial, navy, technological or agricultural dependence on the West.
The globalization of the world economic system, Lavrov mentioned, had been destroyed by sanctions imposed on Russia, China and Iran by the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden.
Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine describe Russia’s 2022 invasion as an imperial-style land seize, and repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces.
Putin casts the battle in Ukraine as a part of a battle with a declining West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by enlarging the NATO navy alliance and encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of affect.
Source: www.dailysabah.com