On the 26th local time, the Russian Foreign Ministry released a video of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov's recent interview. During the interview, Lavrov responded to issues such as the postponement of the meeting between Russian and American leaders in Budapest and the ceasefire proposal between Russia and Ukraine.
Lavrov said that he had a substantive phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Rubio on the 20th of this month. After the call, based on the US statement, Lavrov believed that both sides have a clear understanding of the actions Russia and the United States can take to implement the results of the Alaska meeting between the leaders of the two countries. Lavrov said that Russia is ready to continue to advance dialogue at a pace that the United States deems comfortable.
Lavrov revealedNeither of the two sides mentioned any new meetings or negotiations in the 20th call.。 Lavrov believes that the ball is on the side of the United States. "They proposed something, and we are finally ready to accept it." He also said that it was the United States that first proposed to cancel the Budapest meeting between the leaders of the two countries, and then changed the name "cancelled" to "rescheduled". These changes all originate from the initiator of the meeting initiative, namely the United States.
Lavrov also revealed some details of the meeting between Russian and American presidents in Alaska: "President Putin announced that Russia was ready to accept their proposals and advance to the practical level on the basis of the proposals, but no direct reply was received. All parties agreed to pause in order to consider these proposals." A month later, Lavrov met with Rubio in New York, and the latter said that the US side was still considering them.
Regarding Europe's proposed "immediate ceasefire", Lavrov believes that it is just to buy time to replenish Ukraine's weapons arsenal. He said Europe was trying to use a ceasefire to dominate the agenda,"they changed their stance based on what happened on the front lines." (General reporter Hao Wei Wang Xinjun)