MOSCOW, November 11. /TASS/. Moscow and Paris will need to have a serious discussion of Ukraine-related issues at a meeting between the Russian and French foreign and defense ministers set to take place in Paris on November 12, Russian top diplomat Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference on Thursday.
"I consider France's warning of its plans to raise the Ukraine issue as proof that our French colleagues realize that tomorrow - and in general - they cannot avoid responsibility for what their proteges in Kiev are doing, I mean Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky's regime," Lavrov pointed out. "We will have a very serious conversation on the matter," he said, adding that France and Germany allowed Kiev "to undermine and openly and consistently ignore all advice" and the Minsk Agreements.
"When our French colleagues said that Russia had refused to participate in a November 11 Normandy Four meeting at the level of foreign ministers, we explained everything to them in detail in written form," Lavrov went on to say. He emphasized that when the initiative to hold a Normandy Four meeting on November 11 had been announced at his meeting with his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian two weeks back, he had informed the French top diplomat that he was scheduled to hold talks with a counterpart from another country on that day.
The foreign and defense ministers of Russia and France will hold another 2+2 meeting of the Russian-French Cooperation Council on security and strategic stability issues in Paris on November 12.