Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson underscored the importance of the interview given by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to VGTRK which was published on the Foreign Ministry website August 14, and has been partly covered earlier by EIR. In an article that begins, “Hey, Mr. Trump, are you paying attention?” Johnson stresses the dissonance between Lavrov’s expressed willingness to negotiate or meet with Kushner and Witkoff should they come to Moscow, and the steadfast refusal of Russia to freeze the conflict.
Lavrov, when asked by the journalist how to fight adversaries who are so dishonest, says, “We will not sink to their level. Instead, we will adopt much harsher methods to destroy everything that enables the West to fuel Kiev’s war machine.” To be very clear, he adds, “If we were to suddenly stop at the line of contact, this would effectively betray the feats of our forefathers who defeated Nazism. This option is not on the table. We are talking about something that goes beyond ensuring that people can live in comfort today. People are suffering, and people are dying in these terrorist attacks. This is a matter of our responsible attitude towards the millennia-long history of the Russian state.”
