ISTANBUL
The Russian foreign minister on Tuesday warned against removing the understandings reached between Moscow and Washington during an Alaska summit earlier this year from a proposed US plan to advance peace efforts in Ukraine.
Speaking at a joint press conference with his Belarusian counterpart Maxim Ryzhenkov in the Russian capital Moscow, Sergey Lavrov said Russia and the US have channels of communication, and that Moscow expects Washington to present it with an interim text of the peace plan after it completes its consultations with Europe and Ukraine on the initial document.
“If the spirit and letter of Anchorage are erased from those key understandings we recorded, then, of course, it will be a fundamentally different situation,” Lavrov stressed, noting that Moscow has yet to receive an official version of the document.
Russia is ready to discuss the plan’s points, while several issues in the document require clarification, Lavrov added.
He also expressed Russia’s appreciation for the US position regarding the Ukraine war, which he described as the only Western country to take the initiative in trying to find a solution to the conflict, which has been ongoing for over three and a half years.
He named Belarus and Türkiye as countries that could play a “constructive role” as mediators with regard to the Russia-Ukraine war, while also rejecting any talks of mediation from France and Germany.
The foreign minister argued that those trying to generate hype around the proposed US plan are seeking to undermine US President Donald Trump's efforts to establish peace and rework the plan.
He also said Moscow is not rushing the US into negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine war, and that the US plan showed Washington’s commitment to understandings reached in the Anchorage city of the US state of Alaska.
“To what extent they will defend this position and to what extent they will resist attempts to divert them from the right path, we don't yet know,” he added.
On Sunday, US and Ukrainian officials held talks in Geneva, Switzerland, on the initial 28-point proposal aimed at advancing peace efforts in Ukraine, after which both countries jointly announced the drafting of an “updated and refined” peace framework.
The proposal sparked concerns in Kyiv and among its allies, though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday that, following negotiations, the US-drafted plan now has “fewer points” and “many of the right elements.”
Ukraine’s National Defense and Security Council Secretary Rustem Umerov announced earlier Tuesday that Kyiv and Washington reached a “common understanding” during Geneva talks on the core terms of the US plan.
He added that Kyiv looked forward to organizing a visit by Zelenskyy to the US “at the earliest suitable date in November” to complete final steps and make a deal with Trump.