Russia has brushed off US President Donald Trump’s proposal to halt the war along the current front line, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claiming such calls contradict agreements reached by Trump and Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska.
Speaking at a press conference in Moscow alongside Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gideon Timoteos, Lavrov accused Europe of trying to pressure Washington into backing a quick truce instead of a “long-term settlement.”
He warned that stopping the fighting now would “ignore the root causes” of the conflict and leave part of Ukraine under what he described as a “Nazi-led regime.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, said the Kremlin abandoned diplomacy as soon as the US delayed sending Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv.
“Only a few weeks ago, Putin felt real pressure and showed readiness for talks,” Zelensky said in a statement on social media.
“Once the Tomahawk decision was postponed, Russia immediately lost interest in diplomacy.”
Trump proposed “stop right now at the battle line” after meeting Zelensky on Friday, Oct. 17, saying it was “time to stop the killings and make a DEAL.”
He suggested both sides could claim victories and “let history decide.” European leaders backed the idea, hoping to ease the fighting before winter.
The statement appeared to be the only tangible outcome of the much-anticipated meeting between Trump and Zelensky, which had been widely expected to accelerate the decision on supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.
One day before the meeting, on Oct. 16, Trump held a phone call with Putin during which he reportedly reversed his decision to provide Tomahawks.
He also agreed to meet the Russian leader “within the next two weeks” in Budapest to “see if we can bring this inglorious war between Russia and Ukraine to an end.”
On Oct. 20, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed preparations for the planned Trump-Putin summit.
But the following day, CNN reported that the talks – intended to pave the way for the Budapest meeting – had been “put on hold for the time being,” citing sources who said Lavrov and Rubio had “divergent expectations” about how to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
According to CNN’s sources within the White House, US officials reportedly concluded that Russia remains unwilling to soften its stance or scale back its demands, leading Rubio to hesitate over recommending a Trump-Putin meeting next week.
But Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov on Tuesday dismissed those claims, saying “it’s incorrect to say the meeting was delayed” because “no agreement existed to begin with.”