Russia has warned that attempting to resolve security issues relating to Ukraine without the participation of Moscow is a “road to nowhere”, days after European leaders met United States President Donald Trump to discuss security guarantees for Kyiv.
“We cannot agree with the fact that now it is proposed to resolve questions of security, collective security, without the Russian Federation. This will not work,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.
“I am sure that in the West and above all in the United States they understand perfectly well that seriously discussing security issues without the Russian Federation is a utopia; it’s a road to nowhere.”
The minister’s comments come two days after Trump hosted Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alongside prominent European leaders at the White House, and days after Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
Trump is trying to steer Putin and Zelenskyy towards a settlement more than three years after Russia invaded its neighbour, but major obstacles remain.
The Russian official said any summit between Putin and Zelenskyy “must be prepared in the most meticulous way” so the meeting does not lead to a “deterioration” of the situation around the conflict.
Lavrov also accused European leaders of making “clumsy attempts” to change the US president’s position on Ukraine.
“We have only seen aggressive escalation of the situation and rather clumsy attempts to change the position of the US president,” he said, referring to Monday’s meeting.
Credit: aljazeera.com
