Lavrov blames U.S. for not forcing Ukraine’s capitulation
Sergey Lavrov (Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)
The Russo–Ukrainian war continues because the United States
refused to pressure Kyiv into accepting defeat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov said in an interview with state propaganda network RT on June 4.
Lavrov pushed back on recent comments by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio who said Russia had not shown readiness to make concessions in a peace deal. Lavrov referred to the Anchorage summit on Aug. 15, 2025, and claimed that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin accepted proposals from U.S. President Donald Trump on initial steps that would have halted fighting and opened the way to negotiations.
“If the United States had genuinely promoted its initiative, we would already be sitting at the negotiating table and the hostilities would have stopped,” Lavrov said. He added that, in his view, it was Kyiv that was unwilling to negotiate.
“We do not see a readiness for dialogue on the other side. We cannot find on the other side the people with whom we could hold a dialogue,” he said.
Lavrov also said Moscow was “ready” for peace talks but criticized comments by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte during a visit to Kyiv on June 2, when Rutte said Ukraine will one day join NATO. Lavrov accused Rutte of disregarding U.S. objections and suggested, without providing evidence, that Putin and Trump had agreed to rule out Kyiv’s accession to the alliance.
“He didn’t care that the United States, in the person of
President Trump, considered this unacceptable. Rutte simply declared, embracing
[President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, that Ukraine will be in NATO,” Lavrov said.
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