Russia’s Lavrov: Ukraine conflict will not end until West drops plans to defeat Moscow
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks during a joint press conference with Oman’s Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamood Albusaidi and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Secretary General Jasem Mohamed AlBudaiwi (both not pictured), following a meeting of Sergei Lavrov with his counterparts of the GCC member states, in Moscow, Russia July 10, 2023. Natalia Kolesnikova/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
The armed confrontation in Ukraine will continue until the West gives up plans to dominate and defeat Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with an Indonesian newspaper published on Wednesday.
The goal of the “US-led collective West” is to strengthen its global hegemony, Lavrov told the Kompas newspaper. Lavrov is due to attend the East Asia Summit and Asean Regional Forum in Jakarta this week, as is U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“Why doesn’t the armed confrontation in Ukraine come to an end? The answer is very simple – it will continue until the West gives up its plans to preserve its domination and overcome its obsessive desire to inflict on Russia a strategic defeat at the hands of its Kiev puppets,” according to a transcript of the interview published on Russia’s foreign ministry website.
“For the time being, there are no signs of change in this position.”
Russia waged a full-scale invasion in Ukraine in February 2022, calling it a “special military operation” to denazify its neighbor. Kyiv and its allies call the war, now in its 17th month, an aggression to grab land.
On Wednesday, Russia launched a wave of kamikaze drone attacks on Kyiv for a second night in row and hours before President Volodymyr Zelensky was due to meet Nato leaders at a summit in Vilnius.
The West says it wants to help Ukraine win its conflict with Russia, and Western powers have supplied large amounts of modern arms and ammunition to Kyiv.
Lavrov also accused Kyiv of ignoring Indonesia’s peace plan and instead promoting its own “package of ultimatums.”
Ukraine dismissed the Indonesian plan, a multi-point formula which had included a call for the establishment of a demilitarized zone, reiterating Kyiv’s position that Russia should withdraw its troops from Ukraine.
