Russia will not suspend its military campaign in Ukraine for following rounds of peace negotiations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday.
Russian officials believe peace talks with Ukraine are not proceeding as swiftly as they would like, and have accused the West of trying to sabotage negotiations by bringing war crimes claims against Russian forces in Ukraine, which Moscow rejects.
Speaking in an interview with Russian state television, Lavrov said he saw no reason not to continue negotiations with Ukraine but reiterated Moscow will not cease its military operation when the sides assemble again.
Lavrov stated that President Vladimir Putin had ordered to postpone military action during the first round of negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in late February but that Moscow’s attitude has altered afterwards.
“After we got sure that the Ukrainians were not preparing to retaliate, a decision was taken that throughout the future rounds of talks, there would be no respite (in military action) so long as a definitive deal is not achieved,” Lavrov stated.
Russia dispatched tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it dubbed a special operation to undermine its southern neighbour’s military capabilities and drive out those it branded dangerous nationalists.
The Ukrainian military has offered tough opposition, and the West has slapped sweeping sanctions on Russia to convince it to remove its men.
Lavrov last week accused Kyiv of providing Moscow with an “unacceptable” draught peace accord that departed from agreements the sides had previously agreed on. Kyiv rejected Lavrov’s statements at the time as an attempt to weaken Ukraine or deflect attention from war crime claims against Russian forces.
In the interview aired on Monday, Lavrov also stated that demands by Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, for the EU to continue arming Kyiv showed a “quite significant U-turn” in European policy.
