Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met for 35 minutes July 23 on the sidelines of the ASEAN ministerial in Manila—at Washington’s request, according to TASS sources. The contrast in the two readouts tells its own story: the Russian Foreign Ministry’s runs seven paragraphs; the State Department’s is two sentences, noting they “discussed the U.S.-Russia relationship and the need to end the Russia-Ukraine war.”
On Ukraine, per the Russian readout, Lavrov briefed Rubio on “the real situation on the line of contact” (an indication that he refuted recent Kiev propaganda that Ukrainian forces are now advancing on the ground), and emphasized the “inadmissibility of the continued supply of weapons to the Kiev regime and the destabilizing activities of European countries, which are still seeking to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia.” Further, Lavrov “reaffirmed Russia’s readiness for a political and diplomatic settlement in Ukraine and its commitment to the proposals advanced by the United States at the [2025] meeting of President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump in Anchorage, which the Russian leader has accepted.”
