The US president’s “common-sense” approach is a positive departure from the Biden years, Sergey Lavrov says
Moscow is open to continuing negotiations with the United States because it sees a clear difference between President Donald Trump and his predecessors, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
Unlike the UK and EU countries, “the Trump administration is trying to get to the bottom of the issue and, most importantly, understand the root cause” of the Ukraine conflict, Lavrov told the newspaper Kommersant in an interview published Monday evening.
The US and the EU “organized and funded the anti-constitutional coup” in Kiev in 2014, which triggered the confrontation with Russia, the minister stated.
“Trump has repeatedly said that the colossal mistake which led to the current events in Ukraine was the Biden administration’s decision to drag Ukraine into NATO,” Lavrov added.
Asked whether American negotiators can be trusted, Lavrov said that Moscow should “not brush off” Trump’s overtures. During the first round of negotiations in Saudi Arabia in February, the US delegation emphasized that other countries “have their own national interests that do not always coincide with the national interests of the United States,” he said.
According to Lavrov, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz made it clear that Trump values a pragmatic, “common-sense” approach to world politics.
Lavrov said the message Moscow heard from Washington was that “when their national interests don’t align, Russia and the US, as responsible players on the world stage, must do everything possible to prevent those contradictions from escalating into confrontation.” In areas where their interests do align, both sides should “not waste an opportunity” to pursue joint initiatives, he added.
“We know perfectly well what a mutually beneficial deal looks like – something we have never rejected – and what a deal designed to lure us into another trap looks like,” the minister said.
Trump initiated direct talks with Russia in February, stressing the need to broker a ceasefire between Moscow and Kiev as soon as possible. His envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on Friday, marking their third meeting this year.
