Russian Foreign Minister Sergrov Lavrov accused European leaders on Wednesday, August 20, who accompanied Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday during his visit to Washington, to lead to an “aggressive escalation of the situation” by looking “uncomfortable” to influence Donald Trump to continue Armando Ukraine.
Donald Trump now wishes to organize a summit between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents to which the Kremlin is according to him.
Moscow, however, provides for such a summit only in the final phase of the negotiations to lead to a peace agreement. Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that this meeting should not rush so that it does not lead to the “deterioration of the situation.”
Safety guarantees in the heart of discussions
Moscow also calmed the burning once again with respect to an imminent potential summit among Russian presidents Vladimir Putin and the Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky, arguing that such an encounter must “prepare with the greatest care.”
The Russian president offered, by phone on Monday night with Donald Trump, to see Volodymyr Zelensky in Moscow, but the Ukrainian head of state refused.
Beyond territorial considerations, the question of these security guarantees, claimed by Ukraine to deter Russia from any new aggression in the case of peace, is in the heart of diplomatic efforts in progress to find an exit to the conflict launched in 2022.
Europeans and Americans have mentioned in recent months different possibilities ranging from guarantees similar to the famous article 5 of NATO to the deployment of a military quota in Ukraine or even support for training, air or naval.
Russia, who considers NATO’s expansion at its borders as one of the “deep causes” that led to conflict, rejected most of these possibilities categorically.
“Seriously discussing safety guarantees without Russia is utopian is a path that does not lead anywhere,” said the head of Russian diplomacy on Wednesday, Sergei Lavrov, for whom the “collective security problems” without Russia “cannot be addressed.
Russia also states that Ukraine gives him four partially occupied regions, in addition to Crimea Annexa in 2014, and renounces the Atlantic Alliance.
“Reinsurance force”
All participants in the White House meetings welcomed the advances in the central security archive for kyiv security guarantees and declared that Vladimir Putin had accepted the principle of a summit with Volodymyr Zelensky in the coming weeks.
If a bilateral meeting is going well, a tripartite meeting could continue with Donald Trump, he had offered them last Monday.
Also on Tuesday, the “Volunteer Coalition”, about thirty European countries that support Ukraine, complied with videoconferences under the auspices of the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and French president Emmanuel Macron, to inform Washington’s interviews.
European and American planning teams must contact themselves in “the next few days” to “prepare the deployment of a reinsurance force if hostilities ended,” said Keir Starmer spokesman.
The question of the territorial concessions required by Russia remains a great unknown, while its troops occupy almost 20% of the Ukrainian territory.
Washington, like Europeans, ensures that it must be adjusted directly between Moscow and kyiv, which has excluded any loss of territory to date.
For Donald Trump, on the other hand, which called Volodymyr Zelensky as “flexibility”, Ukraine will have to solve it, particularly for DonBass, the industrial and mining region in the east of the country.
Meanwhile, on the front, the Russian army has continued its progression. He said Wednesday to take three new locations in the Donetsk (East) and DNIPROPETROVSK (Central-East) regions, facing a less numerous and less equipped opponent.
Source: BFM TV
