MOSCOW, December 18. /TASS/. The West openly says that there needs to be a pause in the Ukrainian conflict to allow Ukraine to improve its situation in terms of weapons stocks and military equipment, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Channel One’s Great Game show.

He pointed out that when visiting New York during Russia’s chairmanship of the UN Security Council, he met with a group of political scientists, which included Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan. "Later, everyone came to the conclusion for some reason that it had been a secret meeting and it had been used as a [communication] channel. It was nothing like that; I regularly meet with political scientists when I travel to New York, and this time, I also asked for such a meeting," Lavrov added. "They agreed, their only wish being that they would not have to make any public comments on the matter, and we did not ask them to do that. It leaked from the US several months later, and I don’t know why," he said.

"By the way, since it has been made public, I would like to say that back then, Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan, along with their colleagues of whom there were about six, presented the following idea: we do need to make peace right now because none of the parties is capable of winning; we should make peace for a certain period of time that should be agreed on, leaving things as they are and resuming military activities after a while. They did not hesitate to say that Ukraine needed time to improve its situation in terms of stocks, military equipment, missiles and other warfare items. That was in April. Today, Western leaders are openly talking about it, making the same proposals and making it clear that this would not be an end to the conflict but a pause," Lavrov added.

He noted that the West needed the Minsk Agreements for approximately the same purposes. "[Former German Chancellor Angela] Merkel, [former French President Francois] Hollande and [former Ukrainian President Pyotr] Poroshenko later confessed that the goal was to flood Ukraine with advanced weapons it could use against Russia. That is, the same tactics that are now mentioned by our Western colleagues. The thing to note is that they mention it publicly and not in conversations with us," the top Russian diplomat stressed.

When asked if it’s right to say that changes in the narrative about what was going on on the battlefield in the Ukrainian conflict had not yet stepped up constructive diplomatic efforts involving Russia, Lavrov said: "Absolutely. The change in the narrative does not alter the nature of Western policies as they [the Westerners] continue to view Russia as an adversary and a threat," he emphasized.