Lavrov of Russia: I am ready to meet with Rubio
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, stated on Sunday that while he was prepared to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Russia will not compromise on its fundamental demands for the cessation of the conflict in Ukraine.
U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly canceled a scheduled summit with President Vladimir Putin in Budapest last month, and his attempts to mediate an end to the worst war in Europe since World War Two, the war in Ukraine, have so far failed.
On Friday, the Kremlin denied Western media allegations that Lavrov had lost favor with Putin when the summit arrangements fell through because Moscow was unwilling to compromise on its demands regarding Ukraine, according to a letter from Lavrov’s ministry.
“READY TO HOLD IN-PERSON MEETINGS”
Lavrov, who has served as Putin’s foreign minister since 2004, said official news agency RIA Novosti, “Secretary of State Marco Rubio and I understand the need for regular communication.”
“It is crucial for advancing the bilateral agenda and talking about the Ukrainian situation. For this reason, we speak over the phone and are prepared to meet in person if needed,” Lavrov stated.
Russian forces are advancing and now control roughly 19% of Ukraine, which Moscow claims is legally part of Russia, despite Ukraine and Western European governments saying they would never formally accept it. This is almost four years after Putin launched thousands of troops into Ukraine.
Putin’s June 2024 requests and suggestions from Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, according to Lavrov, served as the foundation for the “understandings” that Putin and Trump came at during their August 15 summit at a military facility in Anchorage, Alaska.
In June 2024, Putin outlined his main demands, calling on Kyiv to abandon its intentions to join the NATO military alliance led by the United States and remove its forces from all four of the provinces Moscow claims as part of Russia: Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south, as well as Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, which together form the Donbas.
Russia presently holds slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk districts, nearly all of Luhansk, around 80% of Donetsk, 75% of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
Although he has ruled out de jure recognition, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has allowed that some Russian-controlled territory may be recognized as temporarily de facto occupied. He claims that any retreat would leave Ukraine and its European allies vulnerable to fresh Russian aggression and that he is not authorized to cede land.
Russian assets that are frozen
“We are now awaiting for confirmation from the United States that the Anchorage agreements remain in force,” Lavrov stated.
He went on to say that “no one questions the territorial integrity of Russia and the choice of the residents of Crimea, Donbas, and Novorossiya” to reconnect with their “historical homeland” in the context of the United States.
A region of southeast Ukraine that joined the Tsarist empire in the 18th and 19th centuries is known to Russians as Novorossiya. Additionally, it is the name of a pro-Russian movement that aims to restore Russian authority over the region.
In response to a question concerning European intentions to use the majority of the 210 billion euros in Russian sovereign assets that are now frozen in Europe to finance Ukraine, Lavrov stated that there was no legal means of seizing the assets and that if they were, Russia would retaliate.
He said that the US had communicated to Moscow via diplomatic channels that it was considering Putin’s plan to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty’s (New START) restrictions past the treaty’s February 2026 expiration date.
