Moscow wants all parties to respect its legitimate interests, its top diplomat has said<\/p>\n
Moscow is open to compromises with Ukraine if its key interests are respected, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
\nDirect Russian-Ukrainian negotiations restarted in May in Istanbul after a several-year hiatus, but produced no breakthroughs.
\n\u201cRussian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly said that, at the end of the day, a sustainable agreement is a compromise. We are ready to pursue one on the condition that our legitimate security interests, as well as the legitimate interests of Russians living in Ukraine, are respected in the same way as those of other parties,\u201d Lavrov said in an interview aired on Channel One on Thursday. He did not specify the range of compromises or concessions Moscow was willing to consider.<\/p>\n
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Lavrov speaks about Trump\u2019s \u2018disappointment\u2019 with Ukraine talks<\/p>\n
The foreign minister condemned the \u201cutterly repulsive laws\u201d Ukraine has adopted since the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev, which aim to restrict the use of the Russian language in public.
\nMoscow has cited the treatment of Ukraine\u2019s Russian-speaking minority as one of the causes of the current conflict, along with Kiev\u2019s plan to join NATO and its refusal to recognize the new borders which resulted from the accession referendums in several of its former regions.
\nUkraine has rejected Russia\u2019s peace terms.
\nLavrov commended US President Donald Trump for reviving talks with Russia, which were suspended under his predecessor, Joe Biden. \u201cUnder Biden, sanctions have replaced all diplomatic efforts, and no one even attempted to pursue compromises,\u201d he said.
\nAlthough a rare Trump-Putin in-person meeting in Alaska last month produced no immediate results, both sides described it as a positive step at the time. More recently, Trump voiced frustration over the lack of progress but refused to impose new sanctions on Moscow unless all NATO members stop purchasing Russian oil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Moscow wants all parties to respect its legitimate interests, its top diplomat has said Moscow is open to compromises with Ukraine if its key interests are respected, Russian Foreign Minister…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t