Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian television on Tuesday that Moscow would be ready to negotiate with the United States on the war in Ukraine, the British Reuters and Russian Tass news agencies reported.
Thus, if the United States proposes a meeting between US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on the sidelines of the G20 to be held in November in Indonesia. Russia says it is ready to consider a positive response.
“We have said several times that we never refuse to organize meetings. If a proposal comes to us, we will consider it,” Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.
“It remains to be seen”, for Biden
The US president also did not rule out such a meeting last week. “It remains to be seen,” he told reporters on October 6, when asked about the possibility of speaking directly with the Russian president during the summit.
The Russian minister also assured that he had never received a “serious proposal” on the negotiations on the war in Ukraine. He also called US claims that Russia refuses to negotiate false.
In September, the US Secretary of State, equivalent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anthony Blinken, for example, considered that “diplomacy is the only way to put a definitive end to Russia’s war of aggression.” He said he saw “no sign that Russia would be ready to seriously pursue such diplomacy” during a NATO news conference.
Bombings in Kyiv
Despite the statements of the head of Russian diplomacy, Moscow carried out intense and deadly bombings on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities on Monday. The Russian Defense Ministry again claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s “massive attacks” against “targets of Ukraine’s military command and energy system.”
This is not the first time that the Russian authorities have mentioned “negotiations”. Vladimir Putin thus called on Ukraine to “immediately cease” hostilities, “the war started by the Kyiv regime in 2014” and “return to the negotiating table”, during his speech on the annexation of four Ukrainian regions at the end of September. He specified that these negotiations could not be related to the annexed regions, since from now on they are considered Russian.
Volodymyr Zelensky responded a few hours later with a video, saying that “Ukraine will not negotiate with Russia as long as Putin is the President of the Russian Federation. We will negotiate with the new president.”
Source: BFM TV
