Moscow (Russia): Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused Western countries of deliberately trying to block peace negotiations with Ukraine. Speaking to TASS (a Russia’s state-owned news agency) on Sunday, he warned that any attempts to derail the diplomatic process would ultimately fail.
He said the diplomatic initiative, initially launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump at the Alaska Summit, had been productive. He added that efforts to obstruct the negotiations would be “thwarted”.
“They are simply looking for a pretext to prevent negotiations, and they want this to happen through no fault of theirs, no fault of (Vladimir) Zelensky, who is also being stubborn, putting forward some conditions, demanding an immediate meeting with Putin, no matter what. [This is] an attempt to disrupt the process basically laid down by presidents Putin and Trump, which was quite fruitful, and we hope that those attempts will be thwarted,” he told All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company journalist Pavel Zarubin, as reported by TASS.
Lavrov recalled that Putin had described the Alaska Summit as “fruitful” and emphasised the need to “turn the page” and resume cooperation between Russia and the United States.
Following the summit on August 15, follow-up meetings on Ukraine were held in Washington on August 19. These discussions focused on the outcomes of the summit, Trump’s interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders and potential post-war security guarantees for Ukraine.
Lavrov also criticised Zelensky for trying to “shift the focus” away from domestic issues in Ukraine, particularly the treatment of the Russian language and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The Russian Foreign Minister argued that Ukraine’s laws banning the Russian language and suppressing the canonical Church constituted “gross violations of the UN Charter”.
He stated that repealing these laws should be the first step toward resolving the conflict, regardless of Zelensky’s stance.
“He said that Russian will not be the state language. However, generally speaking, no one is particularly insisting on this. The first step, which does not depend on any wishes of Zelensky or anyone else, is the repeal of all laws that banned the Russian language and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church in gross violation of the UN Charter. This is why he is trying to shift the focus of the problem, which he will fail to do,” Lavrov told TASS.
According to the news agency, Zelensky has recently clarified that granting Russian the status of a state language is not part of any proposed settlement with Moscow.