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Military operation in Ukraine

Zelensky defines essence of next summit on Ukraine in four-letter explicit word — Lavrov

The first Kiev-initiated conference on Ukraine was held in Burgenstock, Switzerland, on June 15-16

MOSCOW, December 25. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has effectively defined the objectives for the upcoming Kiev-planned peace summit with a straightforward ‘four-letter word,’ Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated on Wednesday.

"When he [Zelensky] was asked in one of the interviews a couple of weeks ago about what Russia should do to resolve the crisis, he publicly declared that Russia should ‘[four-letter word] off’," Lavrov said during the 60 Minutes program on the Rossiya-1 TV channel.

"However, responding to one of the questions later in the same interview, he [Zelensky] mentioned that Russia should be invited to the second summit following the previous one in Burgenstock and that Russia must be confronted with [Ukrainian] demands," Russia’s top diplomat continued.

"If we contrast both of his statements - what Russia should do to settle the Ukrainian conflict and that Russia must be involved in the second summit - I believe he [Zelensky] made his point in his first statement by naming this summit and explicitly defining the essence of this very summit," Lavrov added.

The first Kiev-initiated conference on Ukraine was held in Burgenstock, Switzerland, on June 15-16. Russia was not invited.

Several countries, including China, refrained from attending. None of the BRICS member states supported the meeting’s final communique.

The Russian foreign ministry’s official spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, dismissed the conference as a total failure, arguing that such "meetings" did nothing to establish lasting peace.

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