Russia’s top diplomat said Friday his country is “not ready at all” to discuss a peace deal with Ukraine—a blow to President Donald Trump, whose flashy meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have been a flop.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said there is no meeting planned to discuss peace between Putin and Ukraine’s Volodmyr Zelensky. He added that the two sides remain far apart in their discussions.
“Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda is ready for a summit,” he told NBC News. “And this agenda is not ready at all.”
Specifically, Lavrov said that Moscow signaled to Trump after the Alaska summit—in which the U.S. president controversially rolled out a red carpet for Putin, greeted him with applause, and welcomed him inside a presidential limo—that it can be “flexible” in peace talks with Ukraine. Lavrov claimed Kyiv has refused to do the same.
“President Trump suggested, after Anchorage, several points which we share, and on some of them, we agreed to show some flexibility,” he said.
Lavrov claimed that—when presented with Russia’s asks during his trip to the White House on Monday with European leaders—Zelensky “said no to everything.”
Reached for comment, the White House referred the Daily Beast to the president’s comments on the conflict. Trump maintained Friday that Zelensky and Putin need to meet and agree to peace on their own terms.
On Thursday, Zelensky accused Russia of trying to “wriggle out” of holding a summit to discuss peace, accusing it of continuing “massive attacks” on Ukraine. The same day, Russia launched one of its most comprehensive aerial attacks of the war, forcing millions of Ukrainians to take shelter. An American-owned factory was among the targets, and at least 15 workers were injured there, NBC reported.
Ukrainian officials have long stressed they are ready for hostilities to end but are adamant that they will not part with any of their eastern territories—some of which are currently occupied by Russian forces—to reach a peace agreement. They have also refused to end their pursuit of NATO membership, which Russia maintains is a non-starter for peace discussions.
Trump, 79, has been promoting himself as the should-be winner of a Nobel Peace Prize. As such, ending the war between Ukraine and Russia, something he once declared he would do on day one of his presidency, has been among the president’s top priorities—but also is among his biggest flops, at least to date.
Still, Trump has claimed wins elsewhere in foreign affairs. He personally brokered peace agreements between Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Trump claims those conflicts are among seven that he has solved as president, but experts say that claim is dubious.
Asked about Russia and Ukraine on Thursday, he told the Todd Starnes Show that he will know more in “two weeks” about whether a peace deal will come or not. Claiming that something is coming in “two weeks” has been one of Trump’s go-to lines this term when he does not have an established timeline.
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