Moscow will not stop its military operation in Ukraine until the next rounds of peace talkshe stated today Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Russian officials say peace talks with Ukraine are not moving as fast as they would like. blamed the West that it is trying to derail the negotiations by making accusations of war crimes against Russian troops in Ukraine, something that Moscow denies.
Speaking in an interview with Russian state television, Lavrov said he saw no reason not to continue talks with Ukraine, but insisted that Moscow would not suspend its military operation when the two sides meet again.
The Russian foreign minister noted that President Vladimir Putin had ordered a halt to military action during the first round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in late February, but that Moscow’s position had changed since then.
“Once we were convinced that the Ukrainians were not planning to respond, a decision was made that during the next round of talks, there would be no pause (in military action) unless a final agreement was reached.”said Lavrov.
Lavrov last week accused Kyiv of presenting to Moscow an “unacceptable” draft peace agreement that deviated from previous agreements reached by the parties. Kyiv rejected Lavrov’s allegations as a tactic to undermine Ukraine or divert attention from war crimes charges against the Russian military forces.
In an interview broadcast today, Lavrov also said that EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell’s calls for European bloc to continue equipping Kyiv signal ‘very serious upheaval’ in European politics.
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