MOSCOW, September 12. /TASS/. Russia is committed to a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, but there is no counter-readiness for honest diplomacy, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
"We are committed to resolving the crisis, our president [Vladimir Putin] has repeatedly confirmed this, just recently did it at the Eastern Economic Forum, recalled the statement he had made while speaking at the Foreign Ministry on June 14. I have no doubt that you have the text of that statement. But we see no readiness for honest diplomacy," Lavrov told ambassadors at a roundtable on the Ukrainian issue.
The top diplomat pointed to the Swiss meeting on Ukraine, adding that "the West is trying in every possible way to keep Ukraine within the framework of the ultimatum." Lavrov emphasized that for the West "there are no negotiation proposals other than the ‘Zelensky formula’." According to the Russian foreign minister, the West is clinging to this unacceptable deadlocked document and is "trying in every possible way, through deceit and threats, to drag as many countries of the Global South as possible to their meetings around the Zelensky formula or some parts of it.".