Lavrov: EU Has ’No Place’ In Ukraine Talks

By Staff, Agencies

EU nations are trying to elbow their way into the Ukraine peace process despite their openly hostile stance toward Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, stressing that the bloc should be kept out of the talks for that reason.

Speaking at an embassy roundtable about the Ukraine crisis on Wednesday, Lavrov said that EU countries are “clearly trying, quite brazenly, to reclaim a place at the negotiating table.” The minister, however, signaled that they have no business there.

The bloc, he argued, maintains a “position of revanchism, of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia” while debating a potential troop deployment to Ukraine in case of a ceasefire.

“There is, of course, no place for it at the negotiating table,” he stressed.

Moscow opposes all Western troop presence in Ukraine, citing NATO expansion as a root cause of the conflict and warning that any foreign forces would be seen as legitimate targets.

Lavrov also noted that both the EU and Kiev are seeking to convince US President Donald Trump to abandon his push to settle the conflict and relapse into a stand-off with Russia.

"[They want], essentially, to turn Biden’s war into Trump’s war,” he said.

Since his return in January, Trump has led efforts to end the Ukraine conflict, culminating in a US-Russia summit in Alaska in August—held without EU or Ukrainian participation—which both sides called highly productive.

Though no breakthrough was achieved, Trump later stated Ukraine shouldn't expect NATO membership or the return of Crimea, and has shifted focus from a ceasefire to a permanent peace deal.