As Ukraine’s acting president Volodymyr Zelenskyy flew to Berlin today for a direct session—one without his European “partners” present—with U.S. President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made clear that they have submitted additional proposals to the U.S. regarding collective security guarantees. Lavrov spoke with scores of ambassadors posted to Moscow, who attended a roundtable discussion on the Ukraine conflict on Dec. 11.
He addressed media leaks on discussions between the EU, Ukraine and the U.S., emphasizing: “As I have already said, if these leaks are accurate, they show that the Europeans are mainly focused on pressuring the Americans to provide security guarantees for Ukraine while ignoring all Russian security interests, and on scraping up some money for the Ukraine reconstruction fund.”
However, as reported by TASS, he stated that Russia has submitted additional proposals regarding collective security guarantees to the United States. He elaborated: “We understand that when discussing security guarantees, we cannot focus on Ukraine alone.” Because Russia harbors no aggressive plans against NATO members or EU countries, it is thus ready to enter into written pacts with them to this effect, though “Of course, on a collective, mutual basis.” Since leaders in Europe have chosen to consider Russia as a perpetual enemy, they have “resolutely” refused to provide mutually binding security guarantees.
Lavrov went on to report to the ambassadors that, at the Witkoff-Putin meeting in the Kremlin, the two cleared up all misunderstandings between Moscow and Washington: “This was an extremely important result, because there was a certain impasse following the summit in Anchorage.” The Americans are interested in “understanding the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis, and that was reflected during the meeting of Presidents Putin and Trump in Anchorage on August 15: mutual understandings were reached there, which we stand by and believe can serve as a starting point for a settlement.” Regarding Ukraine’s role in this, it was understood that Ukraine needs to return to neutrality, with a non-nuclear and non-aligned status.
