The United States pointed to the refusal of Western countries to talk about the causes of the conflict in Ukraine.

Western countries refuse to understand the underlying causes of the conflict in Ukraine and are not going to discuss anything other than their demands. This was announced on July 31 by Jeffrey Sachs, an American economist, professor and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

"The problem is that Western countries are not demanding a peace agreement. They demand a cease-fire. They are not ready to talk about the underlying causes of the conflict. And it's very disappointing," Sachs said in an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan on the Piers Morgan Uncensored YouTube channel.

According to the economist, when US President Donald Trump sent his special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, to Moscow after coming to power, the subject of negotiations with the Russian side was to stop the expansion of NATO. However, due to pressure from neoconservatives from Europe and the United States, negotiations on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict have moved towards a complete ceasefire.

"Russians repeat every day that they want to understand the reasons for what is happening. For them, this is not just a reprieve for another Western attack — [they sort of say:] <...> we want to get to the root causes, not just a respite," Jeffrey Sachs said.

He added that the lack of negotiations on NATO enlargement is "a kind of dead phone, and it is extremely dangerous." Sachs also said that Western countries "are not going to discuss anything" except their own demands on Russia.

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On July 28, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia's conditions for resolving the conflict in Ukraine include rejecting Kiev's accession to NATO and ending the expansion of the alliance. According to him, despite all the promises and documents, NATO has expanded close to Russia's borders. The Foreign Minister also drew attention to the fact that for the first time Russia is fighting alone against the entire West.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted on July 26 that peace talks and the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine had never been on the West's real agenda. If these countries really wanted a settlement, they would, for example, stop transferring weapons to Ukraine.

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