Lavrov called Trump the only Western leader who, he claimed, understands the reasons for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said Washington is already showing impatience, and that the European Union cannot accept the prospect of Russia’s victory.
“The United States, above all President Trump, are showing growing impatience. As I’ve already said, he is the only one among Western leaders who, right after arriving at the White House in January of this year, began to show an understanding of the reasons that made the war in Ukraine inevitable—reasons underlying those actions hostile to the Russian Federation that the West and Trump’s predecessor, [former U.S. President Joe] Biden, and his European accomplices had been nurturing for many years,” Lavrov said on December 10, as cited by TASS.
According to Lavrov, “the culmination of this whole story is approaching,” and there is now active discussion that Trump agreed on the need to eliminate the “root causes” of the war as defined by Moscow. The Russian minister specified that this refers to the “inadmissibility” of Ukraine joining NATO and the “need to return from under the control of the Ukrainian regime people whose rights were trampled.”
“It turns out the only Western leader who cares about human rights in this situation is also Donald Trump,” he added.
Lavrov stressed that EU leaders supposedly cannot “swallow” the idea that Russia will win, and therefore continue to support Ukraine.
“They can’t even imagine it-and some even admit in interviews and conversations with journalists-that they don’t envision a situation where they have to swallow the defeat of their protégé and recognize, accept that Russia will achieve its legitimate, just goals. Clearly, that’s their problem, but they created these problems themselves, they are making them worse, and they are clinging to a completely futile line of behavior,” the foreign minister said.
On December 9, the FT reported that President Trump’s representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner gave Volodymyr Zelensky only a few days to respond to a proposed peace deal.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine wants to join NATO, but the United States and several other countries do not want to see it in the alliance. He acknowledged that Ukraine does not have the forces to retake Crimea, which is occupied by Russia, and lacks sufficient support to do so.
