MOSCOW, August 19. /TASS/. Multilateral consultations on Ukraine in Jeddah and Copenhagen where Russia was not invited showed that the West does not intend to agree on anything with Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the International Affairs Journal.
"Multilateral meetings are being held in different cities - in Copenhagen and in Jeddah - without any Russian representatives invited - in the hope of persuading the developing countries to support [Ukrainian President] Vladimir Zelensky’s 'peace formula'. Moscow is accused of ‘unwillingness to participate in the negotiations,’ and any arguments about the need to take into account the vital interests of our country are dismissed offhand. Clearly, such an approach does not indicate the West's intention to negotiate anything with Russia," Lavrov emphasized.
At the same time, Lavrov noted that Russia's approach was "consistent and fully transparent." "We have always said that we are ready for a meaningful dialog. We have spent many years and efforts trying to achieve Kiev's fulfillment of the Minsk agreements," he pointed out.
Lavrov recalled that Russia from the first days of the special military operation had been open to discussing ways of achieving its goals and objectives by political and diplomatic means. "We immediately responded to Ukraine's proposal for starting negotiations and conducted them right up to the moment when the Ukrainian side interrupted them in April 2022 on instructions from the West. And later, on September 30, 2022, Vladimir Zelensky, by his decree, banned negotiations with the Russian leadership altogether," Lavrov stressed. "By doing so Kiev torpedoed the diplomatic work on orders from its foreign handlers".