Ukrainian: Lavrov’s episodic meeting with British Foreign Secretary

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today accused his British counterpart of refusing to listen, in an episodic meeting they had, which showed the gap between the two countries over the Ukrainian crisis.

In the joint press conference given by the two ministers, Lavrov said that in his meeting with Liz Trass he felt as if he was in a discussion of deaf people.

“They say that Russia is waiting for the ground to freeze, like a stone, so that its chariots can easily pass through Ukrainian territory. I think that was the ground today with our British colleagues,” he said.

Trash directly challenged Lavrov’s assurance that Russia was not threatening anyone with the deployment of troops and weapons near the Ukrainian border. “I see no reason why 100,000 troops should be stationed at the border other than threatening Ukraine. And if Russia is serious about diplomacy, it should withdraw those forces and stop the threats,” he said.

Lavrov lamented the fact that they are asking Russia to withdraw troops from its own territory.

The Russian newspaper Kommersant, citing two diplomatic sources, wrote that during the closed-door meeting between the two ministers, Lavrov asked Tras if he recognized Russia’s sovereignty over Rostov and Voronezh – the two areas in southern Russia where Russian forces are concentrated. Trash, always according to the article, replied that Britain would never recognize them as Russian and then the British ambassador intervened to correct it.

Later, in an interview with the Russian newspaper RBC, Trash said she thought Lavrov was referring to parts of Ukraine.

“No one is undermining Russia’s security, this is simply not true,” she said, adding that it was “absolutely right” for Ukraine to defend itself and seek allies.

Russia’s relations with Britain have been bad for years. They reached their lowest point with the poisoning and death of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 and the assassination attempt on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in 2018.

Lavrov claimed that London had never presented evidence to support his allegations of Russian involvement in either case, or that Moscow had attempted to poison dissident Alexei Navalny in 2020. He said Trash had not changed his tone during the two-hour meeting. and that he ignored his explanations, while repeating statements and demands that Britain has made in the past.

Source: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ

Source: Capital

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