INA-Follow-up
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow no longer trusts that Western countries have a genuine desire to reach negotiated solutions, accusing the West of repeatedly breaching commitments and undermining agreements reached in the past.
Speaking at a press conference following talks with Mozambique’s Foreign Minister Maria Manuela dos Santos Lucas in the capital, Maputo, Lavrov said Western countries continue to call for negotiated solutions, but had previously provided guarantees for agreements reached in 2014, 2015, and 2019 before retreating from them. He described those guarantees as having “proved false.”
Lavrov added that a similar pattern was repeated in 2022, when Russia and Ukraine reached a negotiated solution, but the West, according to him, worked openly to undermine it. He said Russia would “no longer trust” Western statements regarding a desire for a political settlement and that the stock of trust had been fully exhausted.
In the same context, Lavrov expressed Moscow’s appreciation for Mozambique’s position, noting that the Russian side renewed its thanks to the Mozambican leadership for its understanding, according to the Russian perspective, of the root causes of the conflict in Ukraine. He also praised what he described as Mozambique’s “balanced and responsible” stance at the United Nations and its refusal, according to him, to support Western efforts aimed at making the Ukrainian issue the central item on the international agenda.
