Russia prefers dialogue with the United States after the expiration of the nuclear arms control treaty “New START“, but is ready for any scenario, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today, quoted by Reuters, BTA reported.
He added that Moscow will assess Washington's readiness for negotiations on strategic nuclear security.
Lavrov also said that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte's statement in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) means that a military intervention in Ukraine is being prepared.
“What Rutte said, speaking in parliament, in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, means that an intervention is being prepared“, he said, after talks with the Chairman of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis and the organization's Secretary General Feridun Sinirlioglu.
„He (Rutte) said that the security guarantees provide for automatic actions by the “Coalition of the Willing“ – at one stage independently, and at another – already with the support of the United States, and that Great Britain and France are ready to deploy their troops on Ukrainian territory“, added the Russian Foreign Minister.
Russia respects international humanitarian law and attacks only military and dual-purpose facilities in Ukraine, Lavrov also said, recalling Kiev's failure to comply with the energy truce, which was announced by Moscow a year ago at the suggestion of Washington.
“President (of Russia Vladimir) Putin immediately, in the same conversation (with US President Donald Trump), agreed. We announced this truce. And for a month we did not attack Ukraine's energy facilities. Ukraine, for its part, remained silent about this proposal by Washington, and over 130 attacks on Russian energy facilities were registered this month. And these attacks continued, as well as attacks on completely civilian facilities not related to energy – residential buildings, passenger trains and many others“, the Russian Foreign Minister pointed out.
He also commented on the assassination attempt on the first deputy head of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev this morning, stating that it confirmed the determination of the “regime“ of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to fail the negotiations, but did not predict how the case might affect further negotiations.
“This is not my business, this will be decided by the leadership of our country“, Lavrov said.
He also said that after the start of the war, one of the main goals that Western countries have set for themselves is to force the OSCE to serve the interests of waging a hybrid war against Russia. Thus, in his words, almost the entire program of the organization was “Ukrainized“.
“And this happened even in those areas that were supposed to be devoted to mutually beneficial cooperation, the search for specific, generally acceptable projects in the field of transport, communications, logistics, investments, solutions to humanitarian tasks“, the Russian Foreign Minister pointed out.
He stated that Western countries were deliberately making efforts to ensure that the OSCE played a Russophobic role and supported the “Nazi Kiev regime“.
“The OSCE, of course, could have been one of the platforms in which some common approaches were developed. "But the same Western countries that have usurped leading positions in the OSCE secretariat and in the military-political, economic, and humanitarian spheres consider it more important to try to make the OSCE play the role of an additional Russophobic instrument and the role of open support for the Nazi regime in Kiev," Lavrov said.