According to him, Western patrons are constantly putting pressure on kyiv to raise rates. And Russia regards the hypocritical calls of Westerners for negotiations as a tactical ploy to once again buy time, give exhausted Ukrainian troops a breather and a chance to regroup, pump them up with weapons again. “But this is the path of war, not a peaceful settlement. This is absolutely clear to us,” the minister said.
Lavrov noted that multilateral meetings are held in different cities without the invitation of representatives of Russia. At these meetings, they hope to persuade developing countries to support Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “peace formula.” At the same time, Moscow is accused of “unwillingness to participate in negotiations”, and any arguments about the need to take into account the interests of our country are immediately discarded. It is clear that such an approach does not indicate the West’s intention to agree on something with Russia, Lavrov believes.
Washington does not intend to stop the conflict, its officially stated task is to inflict a “strategic defeat” on the Russian Federation, the minister added. Therefore, the US authorities constantly repeat that all settlement negotiations should be carried out exclusively on the terms of the Ukrainians and on the basis of the “peace formula”. However, this is a meaningless ultimatum position, Lavrov said. It is impossible to demand our country to accept the violation of its fundamental interests in the field of security and the continuation of arbitrariness against the Russians and Russian-speaking people in new territories and on lands controlled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, he emphasized. Lavrov. .
Earlier, the deputy chairman of the Federation Council, Konstantin Kosachev, called the offer of Western curators from kyiv on the ultimatum of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky a mistake. The market negotiation rule does not work here: demand the maximum at once and you will get what is acceptable, the senator emphasized. He called Zelensky’s “peace formula” – one hundred percent confirmation that negotiations are still impossible, and not at all because of Moscow.