You're reading: Lavrov: Moscow expects new multilateral consultations on Ukraine to start soon

Moscow expects the soonest possible implementation of its proposal on consultations on Ukraine between all parties concerned, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“It looks like another proposal by the Russian president on starting
substantial consultations involving all parties concerned has been
supported, and I expect that this support will be materialized into
practical actions in the near future,” Lavrov said at an international
forum at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO)
on Thursday.

“If someone thoroughly analyzes what has happened in the past 2.5
decades, Russia has done more than anyone else for supporting the
independence and peaceful development of the brotherly Ukrainian people
and has allotted dozens of billions of dollars for this purpose since
the Soviet Union’s collapse,” he said.

“We are convinced that Ukraine, by preserving its legislatively
stipulated non-aligned status, should be not an area for geopolitical
confrontation but a link between Russia and Western Europe in ensuring
progress toward building a common economic and humanitarian expanse from
the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, in favor of which both Russia and
the EU leadership have been speaking,” he said.

“For some reason, each time when international crises worsen, we are
told that we are supposed to settle everything on our own. Several years
ago, when negotiations on the Iran nuclear problem failed to be
resumed, they said that, if only Russia raised its voice, the Iranians
would immediately obey and sit at the negotiating table. Then there was
Syria, and it is continuing, and we are being told that, if only Russia
spoke with President Assad, then everything would be fine and terrorism
would be stopped, and the only thing he should do is go. Now we are told
that everything depends on us in Ukraine as well. We are certainly
flattered, but perhaps a ‘regional power’, as we have been branded,
cannot do everything. We prefer to act collectively,” he said.

“Increasingly more sober voices and calls for breaking the absurd
chain of events have been heard in the European Union as regards the
Ukrainian crisis, and the danger of imposing an artificial choice
between the West and the East on Ukraine has been recognized,” he said.