"We have always been told by the West that the only basis for any negotiations is the Zelensky formula … It starts with … food security, energy security, physical security of nuclear facilities, humanitarian issues. And then this formula moves to the very thing for which it was made up - strategic defeat of Russia to restore Ukraine's 1991 borders, to put the Russian leadership under the tribunal, to make Russia pay reparations," Lavrov said at a roundtable on the Ukrainian settlement in Moscow.
According to the top Russian diplomat, Western countries have been attempting to enlist the support of "global majority countries," including Asian, African, and Latin American nations, in order to endorse this scheme. They characterize this approach as nothing less than a blatant deception.
Zelensky said in the fall of 2022 that Kiev had its own peace plan to end the ongoing conflict and at the very same time signed a law, prohibiting peace talks with Russia.
Moscow repeatedly stressed that it is open to negotiations that respect the interests of Russian people and recognize the “new territorial reality”. Kremlin officials also said that Kiev is seemingly not interested in negotiating a solution for the current crisis.
Lavrov added that a "real plot" emerges around the issue of Russian-Ukrainian peace negotiations, attempting to "turn everything upside down".
"A real plot emerges around the subject of the so-called negotiations, attempting to turn everything upside down through pseudo-diplomacy. Just as it was done during the beginning of the Ukrainian events, which for many years have been prioritized by our Western colleagues, primarily the United States and the United Kingdom. They invested billions of dollars in the Ukrainian opposition and brought it to power through an unconstitutional bloody coup," Lavrov said at a roundtable on the Ukrainian settlement in Moscow which included the diplomatic missions from over 30 countries.
The minister also said that many proposals for humanitarian and mediation initiatives have recently been made.
On Economic Aspects of Ukrainian Crisis
The United States has been "cleaning" the European market of the bloc’s weapons by providing Ukraine with large amounts of funding and enabling Kiev to procure European military equipment in order to supply US-produced arms to the European Union and NATO countries, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.
"Look at the sums that are being allocated to help Ukraine, look at how former Soviet, Russian, and now Western weapons are being pumped out of Europe. The market is being freed to supply US military products for the rearmament of EU and NATO countries via the large-scale funding and purchase of US weapons produced by American corporations," Lavrov said at a roundtable on the Ukrainian settlement with the participation of representatives of diplomatic missions from more than 30 countries.
In recent months, NATO countries and their allies have held several meetings within the US-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the Ramstein air base in Germany to provide weapons and military equipment to Ukraine. The next meeting is scheduled for September 18.