Lavrov accuses Kiev of ‘sabotaging’ US peace efforts
Kiev is actively trying to sabotage US President Donald Trump’s efforts to peacefully resolve the Ukraine conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. He added that Washington appears to understand the need to resolve the root causes of the crisis.
Speaking at a roundtable discussion of the Ukraine conflict on Wednesday, Lavrov noted that during the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska last month, the American side agreed that actions need to be taken to address the underlying issues of the crisis. He added that US special envoy Steve Witkoff later conveyed his assessment of the summit to the Ukrainian side.
”As we understand it, these assessments, these considerations, and these proposals have been rejected by Kiev,” Lavrov said, adding that the Ukrainian side is “trying in every way to sabotage this American administration’s line.”
The foreign minister suggested that both Ukrainian and Western European leaders are trying to convince Trump to abandon his peacemaking efforts and return to confrontation with Russia, and “essentially turn Biden’s war into Trump’s.”
Lavrov went on to say that Europe has been desperately trying to win a place for itself at the negotiating table. He stressed, however, that given its open position of revanchism and its goal of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, it has “nothing to do at the negotiating table.”
Throughout the conflict, Moscow has stressed that it is open to a peaceful settlement, as long as it includes a Ukrainian commitment to neutrality, demilitarization, denazification, and acceptance of the new territorial realities.
However, Russian officials, including Lavrov, have said neither Kiev nor its European backers appear to be genuinely interested in peace and are actively trying to prolong the conflict.
