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The Russian foreign minister said on Tuesday that Europe is “becoming a major threat to international peace and security” by providing military support to Ukraine, and claimed that the US was no longer trying to be an “objective mediator” to broker an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“As for the United States, judging by their actions, they appear to be abandoning any claim to the role of an objective mediator and are instead pursuing a course of escalating sanctions pressure on Russia,” Sergei Lavrov told foreign envoys in Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov also said that Russia is allegedly ready for a dialogue with the European Union, as he reiterated the Kremlin’s narrative that it is Europe and not Moscow that is prolonging the war in Ukraine.
US-led talks on ending Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine remain effectively frozen, with President Donald Trump’s attention diverted towards the Middle East.
European Council President António Costa last week had to defend his surprise decision to open a diplomatic channel with the Kremlin to assess whether conditions exist for peace negotiations, a possibility his team concluded is not currently viable.
It is understood, although Costa’s office did not confirm, that Ushakov was the Russian official in question.
Putin’s aide did not comment on any possible contact with Costa’s team on Tuesday, but rushed to accuse Brussels of trying to “undermine the agreements in Anchorage”, referring to the Alaska summit between Trump and Putin in August last year.
That meeting ended without any commitments toward a ceasefire in Ukraine, but Moscow claims Washington agreed to the so‑called “Anchorage formula” – a loosely defined set of “understandings” on freezing the front line and curbing Western military support to Kyiv, which US officials have never acknowledged.
One of Moscow’s main preconditions for peace talks is that Ukraine withdraw its forces from the eastern Donbas region, an area Russia has been trying to occupy since 2014.
Kyiv’s army still controls parts of the territory, and has ruled out surrendering it.