Moscow [Russia], August 24 (ANI): Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused Western countries of deliberately trying to obstruct peace negotiations with Ukraine, warning that such efforts will ultimately fail, the state news agency TASS reported on Sunday.
In an interview with VGTRK journalist Pavel Zarubin, Lavrov emphasized that attempts to derail the diplomatic process—originally initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump during the Alaska summit—would be “thwarted.”
Lavrov noted that Putin had described the summit as “fruitful” and highlighted the need to “turn the page” and resume cooperation between Russia and the United States.
“They [Western countries] are simply looking for a pretext to prevent negotiations, and they want this to happen through no fault of theirs, no fault of [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, 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,” Lavrov told Zarubin, as quoted by TASS.
Following the Alaska summit on August 15, follow-up meetings on Ukraine were held in Washington on August 19. Discussions centered on the summit’s outcomes, Trump’s talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders, and potential post-war security guarantees for Ukraine.
Lavrov also criticized Zelenskyy for attempting to “shift the focus” away from internal issues, particularly the treatment of the Russian language and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, TASS reported. He argued that Ukrainian laws restricting the Russian language and the Church amounted to “gross violations of the UN Charter.”
“The first step, which does not depend on any wishes of Zelenskyy 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 said, according to TASS.
Zelenskyy recently stated that granting Russian the status of a state language was not under consideration in any settlement with Moscow, TASS added. (ANI)
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