Russia has rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “peace formula” as a basis for negotiations and believes Kyiv is still not ready for real peace talks, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told state-run RIA news agency.
Lavrov also said Kyiv’s hopes of driving Russia out of eastern Ukraine and Crimea with Western help were “an illusion”, the agency reported on Thursday. The veteran Russian diplomat’s comments represent the latest evidence of the gulf in positions between Moscow and Kyiv, and how far the two governments are from any realistic chance of talks aimed at ending the war, now in its eleventh month.
