Putin’s foreign minister issues 4-word response to Ukraine peace deal | World | News
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov harshly criticized Europe on Tuesday for its past role in trying to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine: “You had a chance.”
These harsh comments were made at a joint press conference with Belarusian Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov, an ally of the Kremlin, after US officials held consecutive meetings with Ukrainian representatives in Geneva and Russian delegates in Abu Dhabi to negotiate a peace agreement.
Lavrov targeted Europe for its failure to maintain previous ceasefires, including the 2014 Minsk Agreement, and for its meddling in recent peace proposals for the war, which broke out in February 2024 following a large-scale Russian invasion. He cited these examples as justification for excluding Europe from the current negotiations led by the United States.
“Every time progress was made and temporary or more stable, long-term agreements were reached, these agreements were broken,” Lavrov said on Tuesday. he said.
“Today, while our European colleagues loudly declare that there will be no new Minsk [agreements]”I must say that we cannot solve anything without Europe, because this directly concerns us. Europe has completely failed since 2014.”
“So Europe, now when they say ‘Don’t you dare do anything without us’, you already had opportunities, you didn’t take them, you just failed to act,” he said.
The comments came after Ukrainian officials confirmed on Monday that they had accepted the American-led deal to end the conflict; however, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized that “more work still needs to be done on the revised plan.”
The agreement was formulated during talks between American and Ukrainian representatives in Geneva over the weekend, after the Trump administration delivered a comprehensive 28-point peace proposal to Kiev.
Over the course of the discussions, officials modified the original proposal into a 19-point agreement that removed from immediate consideration many contentious issues, including authority over Ukraine’s Donbas region. It was reported that the issue would be discussed at a later date.
American officials subsequently confirmed that US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll held secret meetings with Russian representatives in Abu Dhabi regarding peace negotiations.
Lavrov stated that Russia would reject the deal if conditions were “fundamentally different” from those negotiated between American and Russian representatives at the Alaska summit in August.
This development follows an overnight series of deadly attacks between Russia and Ukraine in Kiev that left at least seven people dead; NATO warplanes took off in Romania following reports that a Russian drone had violated airspace.
