Russia wants … Russia to have veto over Western security guarantees for Ukraine

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“Moscow received’t agree with collective safety ensures negotiated with out Russia … Russia will settle for if the safety ensures to Ukraine are supplied on equal foundation with the participation of nations like China, the USA, the UK and France,” Lavrov stated in a press convention, after assembly the Jordanian international minister.

Beijing and Moscow having any say in how safety ensures for Ukraine would work is a nonstarter for Western allies, whilst they try to cobble collectively a plan to guard Ukraine after any ceasefire or peace settlement comes into power.

In an extra instance of the Kremlin’s recalcitrance on taking steps to finish its full-scale invasion that started in February 2022, a mooted assembly between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stays a distant prospect, in response to feedback Lavrov made earlier this week.

On Wednesday, Lavrov returned to an idea proposed in the course of the Istanbul peace talks in April 2022 that concerned a NATO-like coalition of guarantor nations offering safety ensures to Ukraine. That concept flopped on the Western aspect as a result of Moscow demanded a unanimous clause that needed to be green-lighted by all international locations, together with Russia, earlier than the ensures could possibly be triggered.

“I'm assured that within the West — at the beginning in the USA — they completely perceive that discussing the problem of safety with out the Russian Federation is a utopia, a highway to nowhere,” Lavrov stated at a press convention.

Putin’s prime diplomat additionally hit out on the EU’s prime diplomat Kaja Kallas, an ardent Russia hawk, whose statements he stated are “a degradation of the international coverage strategies.”

Trump, who touted latest conferences with Putin after which Zelenskyy and European leaders as a hit, advised Zelenskyy and European leaders throughout their Monday assembly that Ukraine could have “Article 5-like” NATO protections, however omitted any specifics — whereas pledging later that no American boots shall be on the bottom in Ukraine.