Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that ’seriously discussing security issues without the Russian Federation is a utopia, it’s a road to nowhere.’
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Aug. 20 that attempts to resolve security issues relating to Ukraine without including Moscow were a “road to nowhere.”
Lavrov’s comments came two days after U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and various European leaders for discussions about security guarantees for Ukraine.
On Aug. 20, Lavrov said: “We cannot agree with the fact that now it is proposed to resolve questions of security, collective security, without the Russian Federation. This will not work.
“I am sure that in the West and above all in the United States they understand perfectly well that seriously discussing security issues without the Russian Federation is a utopia, it’s a road to nowhere.”
Lavrov, who is 75 and has been Russia’s foreign minister since 2004, is a loyal ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
NATO Virtual Meeting
NATO defense chiefs are holding a virtual meeting on Aug. 20, during which they are expected to discuss possible future security guarantees for Kyiv that could facilitate a peace agreement.
Italian Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of NATO’s military committee, said on X that defense chiefs from all of the alliance’s 32 members would hold a video conference.
Dragone said U.S. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s supreme allied commander of Europe, would take part, his first participation in a military committee meeting, to update them on “the current security environment.”
Trump met with Putin on Aug. 15 in Alaska for their first direct talks.
Afterward, while signaling progress, Trump said, “There’s no deal until there’s a deal.”
At the post-meeting press conference, Putin said that Russia would continue to seek to “eliminate all the primary roots” of the conflict in Ukraine and to address “fundamental threats to [Russian] security.”
Russia wants, as part of a peace deal, a guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO.
Moscow is also unwilling to accept troops from NATO countries to act as peacekeepers on the ground in Ukraine if a cease-fire is agreed.
Trump on Aug. 19 ruled out sending U.S. troops to Ukraine.
