Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday he saw no reason for Europeans to take part in Ukraine truce talks, accusing them of wanting to “continue war” in Ukraine.
Lavrov’s comments came ahead of his visit to Saudi Arabia to meet US officials and as European leaders convene in Paris for an emergency summit on Ukraine, amid alarm at Washington’s diplomatic outreach to Moscow.
“I don’t know what they would do at the negotiating table… if they are going to sit at the negotiating table with the aim of continuing war, then why invite them there?,” Lavrov told a press conference in Moscow.
The veteran foreign minister said Europe had “its chance” at resolving the conflict from 2014 — when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula and backed pro-Russian armed separatists in the east — and that the bloc had failed.
The United States has said that it wants both Russia and Ukraine to make concessions if ceasefire talks ever materialize.
But Lavrov insisted Moscow would not compromise on territory it has seized in eastern and southern Ukraine, saying there could not even be a “thought” of that during negotiations.
The Kremlin in 2022 claimed to have annexed four Ukrainian regions — Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia — despite not having full control of them.
