Lavrov spoke about French proposals to establish dialog on Ukraine without Kiev

France has offered Russia to start a dialog on the Ukrainian conflict without Ukraine's participation in the talks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said at a briefing on Thursday, 26 December. This was stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a briefing on Thursday, December 26.

"Several times there were appeals from our French colleagues through closed channels: 'Let us help, let us establish a dialog on the Ukrainian issue.' By the way, without any Ukraine," he said.

The diplomat noted that with such proposals Paris violated the Western rule that no negotiations on the conflict in Ukraine can take place without Kiev's participation in them. Such ambiguity does not cause a serious attitude towards such proposals.

The Russian Foreign Minister added that Moscow is ready for talks with the administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, but only if they are not empty talks, but a dialogue to reach legally binding agreements that guarantee the security of Russia and its neighbors and exclude violations of these agreements. A ceasefire without such agreements, he said, is not a solution.

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The day before, the deputy speaker of the Federation Council, Konstantin Kosachev, said that the decision on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict was likely to be taken not in Kiev but in "higher oval offices".

Earlier, on December 24, First Deputy Chairman of the Defense Committee Alexei Zhuravlev said that Trump talks a lot about resolving the crisis in Ukraine, and it is worth waiting for him to take real measures on this issue. In addition, the United States has always behaved as an adversary of Russia, regardless of who led the state.

Before that, on December 22, Trump said that he was waiting for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to start negotiations on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict. The Republican added that if he were in the place of the current US President Joe Biden, he would not have allowed such a crisis at all.

On 18 December, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that the North Atlantic Alliance's intentions to geopolitically absorb Ukraine were blocking the way to a long-term settlement of the conflict. According to him, the root of the Ukrainian crisis lies in the expansion of Washington-led NATO into the post-Soviet space.

The special operation to protect Donbass, the start of which was announced by Russia on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was taken against the background of the aggravated situation in the region.