April 9, 2024 (EIRNS)—On the eve of his April 8-9 visit to China, on April 4 Sergey Lavrov had a two-hour meeting with ambassadors from 70 countries of the Global South, including the head of the Chinese diplomatic mission in Moscow, the main topic of which was a peace settlement in Ukraine. He underlined the importance of the Chinese peace proposal among all the other initiatives from the non-Western countries, and rejected out-of-hand the Swiss initiative, where Switzerland is trying to get as many countries as possible together, based solely on Zelenskyy’s “ultimatum.” Lavrov noted Switzerland’s inability to act as a neutral sponsor, as it has not only joined all the sanctions against Russia, but also in “a number of areas acts as the instigator of these sanctions and their most zealous implementer.”
These issues were also a subject of discussion in the meeting between the Russian and Chinese foreign ministers in Beijing on April 9. In the Russian readout of the meeting, it is stated: “The parties exchanged views on the possibilities of resolving the Ukrainian crisis. The futility of any international events that do not take into account Russia’s position and are divorced from reality is emphasized. The Russian side gave positive assessments to China’s constructive steps to find peaceful ways to resolve the conflict.”
