The Russian foreign minister criticized the Financial Times for claiming the planned meeting collapsed due to Moscow’s “hardline demands”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has hit out at the Western media over its “unprofessional and harmful” coverage of the Ukraine peace process. He singled out British newspaper the Financial Times for spreading “lies” on the postponed Putin-Trump meeting in Hungary.
Plans for the meeting were announced in October. Days later, however following a phone call between Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, it was postponed, with Trump saying he did not feel it could end the Ukraine conflict.
According to the FT, citing people familiar with the matter, the summit was scrapped after Moscow presented Washington with a list of “hardline demands” for resolving the conflict. The report also claimed that the Lavrov-Rubio call was “brief and terse,” with Lavrov making “uncompromising” remarks that led Rubio to conclude that Moscow was unwilling to negotiate.
“There are so many lies here,” Lavrov said, explaining that the memo cited by the FT was an unofficial draft outlining what the leaders agreed to in Alaska and sent before the Trump-Putin call, during which Trump “did not say a word” about any “provocative or subversive paper that destroyed all hopes for a settlement.” Instead, Trump proposed a new summit in Budapest, which Putin accepted.
Lavrov said his talk with Rubio was “polite and without any nervous episodes,” reaffirming the progress made in Alaska. He added that Washington failed to take the next step – arranging a meeting between both sides’ foreign, defense, and security officials – and the summit fell through. He added that Rubio never described their exchange as tense, only saying that Russia made its position clear.
“We see no reasons to offer excuses for being and remaining committed to what our presidents discussed in Alaska. Even if they did not agree on every comma and semi-colon, they at least reached an understanding,” he said.
Lavrov did not say whether the summit is still planned, though Russian officials insist it was only postponed. Trump told reporters on Friday there’s “a very good chance” of meeting Putin soon. Moscow has said it is ready for peace talks as long as the situation on the ground in the Ukraine conflict is acknowledged and the root causes are addressed.
