Moscow, Jan 20 (.) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, summarising the developments of 2025 in a press conference in Moscow, slammed the West and especially Europe, whom he accused of prolonging the war with Ukraine for their own vested interests, arguing that the Kremlin remains committed to diplomacy but only at a reciprocal level, which currently does not look likely.
Russia, he said, would negotiate with any partner who was prepared to engage on equal, and reciprocal terms—”without blackmail or pressure”—but would not renounce what he described as its civilisational foundations.
Furthermore, he said that the Euro-Atlantic concept of security and cooperation are failing, as the US is gradually pulling out of older blocs of defence with Europe, while the latter is focusing on forming new security structures without Washington, reports RIA Novosti.
“NATO and the OSCE are Euro-Atlantic structures, and as such, they are experiencing the deepest crisis of NATO itself, which is now discussing whether it is time to close it down because one NATO country is planning to attack another NATO country,” Lavrov said.
Lavrov insisted that Moscow had extended goodwill towards Kyiv, and opened the gate for negotiations more than once, pointing out to settlement attempts all the way from 2014, to 2021 and early 2022, but said each attempt had been undermined by Western actions.
He noted that Brussels “blew” its first chance more than a decade back, when it failed to force the Ukrainian opposition to adhere to the February 2014, agreement whose terms it had guaranteed itself.
He subsequently revisited the December 2021 security proposals, which were again rejected by the West and the April 2022 Istanbul talks, where he alleged Europe failed to oppose the-then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s intervention discouraging Kyiv from signing a deal.
“The Kremlin remains committed to diplomacy,” Lavrov said, adding that the US was now the only Western power showing any willingness to discuss the “root causes” of the conflict.
By contrast, he accused European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of “hysterically” pushing Washington to back a ceasefire that, in Moscow’s view, would merely allow Ukrainian forces to regroup, as the Kremlin feels that Brussels has no intention of diplomatically engaging with Moscow.
As such, Russia, he said, would not accept any arrangement that enabled Ukraine to rearm. “We cannot afford to let the Kyiv regime catch its breath and then attack Russia again,” Lavrov warned, describing Ukraine as a tool of what he called “crazed Western Europeans”.
He also criticised Western silence on conditions in any Ukrainian territory remaining under Kyiv’s control after a settlement, citing the lack of discussion about the rights of Russian speakers, restrictions on the Russian language, or the status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church aligned with Moscow. Proposals aimed at preserving Zelensky’s government, he said, were “absolutely unacceptable”.
Touching on US foreign policy, Lavrov remarked that Donald Trump had openly dismissed the idea of international law in favour of personal judgement, while Europe had repeatedly been opposing the concept of international law with its own concept of a “rules-based world order.”
“But the rules aren’t being written by the collective West, but by one of its representatives. And for Europe, of course, this is a profound shock,” Lavrov added.
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