MOSCOW, May 26. /TASS/. Russia knows about Italy’s plan on settling the situation in Ukraine only from media outlets, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with RT Arabic, the fragment of which aired on Thursday afternoon.
"Nobody has handed us anything. We can only be guided by those speculations, those descriptions of this initiative that appear in news outlets," he said.
"[Italian Foreign Minister] Luigi Di Maio entered the media space, so actively advertising the Italian four-part initiative. We only read about it. We read that this initiative can bring a long-awaited peace," the Russian top diplomat pointed out.
He noted that according to the media reports this Italian initiative can "not only satisfy Russia and Ukraine but also provide for virtually a new Helsinki Process, new agreements on European security" and that allegedly "it is already being supported by the countries of the Group of Seven (G7) and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres." "I don’t know if this is true or not," the foreign minister emphasized. He noted that if it is indeed so, then this "causes the feelings of regret in terms of the authors of this initiative understanding the situation and their knowledge of the subject, the history of this issue."
"As far as I understand, there (in the text of the initiative - TASS) it says that Crimea and Donbass should be part of Ukraine while receiving wide autonomy. Well, serious politicians who want to obtain a result and not engage in self-promotion before voters cannot propose such things," he asserted.
Earlier, La Repubblica reported that Di Maio submitted a proposal on a peaceful settlement in Ukraine to the UN and G7 partners which provides for a ceasefire as well as a treaty on "contested territories" and a general multilateral agreement on security guarantees in Europe.