France approached Russia via closed channels to try to reconcile Moscow and Kyiv

France tried to offer Russia to establish a dialogue on Ukraine. Paris approached Moscow a number of times through closed channels on this issue, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

Photo: kremlin.ru by press service of the President of Russia, https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/pdm/

Sergei Lavrov

"Our French colleagues have approached us several times through closed channels. "Let us help, let us establish a dialogue on the Ukrainian issue." By the way, without Ukraine at all — just a dialogue on the Ukrainian issue — in violation of the principle of ‘not a word about Ukraine without Ukraine’," Lavrov said during an interview with Russian and foreign media.

Russia is not refusing to engage in dialogue with France, despite its ambiguous position:

• The French authorities put forward an initiative to send “peacekeeping troops” to Ukraine;
• Paris also trains Ukrainian military men in France;
• French officials say that one should batter Moscow down so that Kyiv could be prepared for negotiations from a stronger position.

France's ambiguous behavior does not inspire Moscow to take the initiatives of the French side seriously, Lavrov noted.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President-elect Donald Trump met in Paris on December 7. They arrived at the opening ceremony of the Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral after its five-year restoration. Trump was supposed to hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron. However, Zelensky was invited to the talks as well, although Trump had not initially planned such a meeting. It was Macron who persuaded Trump to talk to Zelensky. 

After his visit to Paris, Trump called on Moscow and Kyiv to immediately cease fire and begin negotiations. In his opinion, the Ukrainian authorities are now ready to conclude a deal with Russia.

In response to Trump's statements, Russia confirmed its readiness for negotiations, albeit on one condition - Ukraine must withdraw its troops from the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, as well as from Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.

Details

Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov (born 21 March 1950) is a Russian diplomat who has served as the foreign minister of Russia since 2004. He is the longest-serving Russian foreign minister since Andrei Gromyko during the Soviet Union. Lavrov was born in Moscow and graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) in 1972. He received his first Soviet diplomatic posting in Sri Lanka, and speaks fluent Sinhala, Dhivehi, English, and French, in addition to his native Russian. From 1981 to 1988 Lavrov held several posts in the Soviet Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York City. Starting in the late 1980s he was deputy director and then director of the Foreign Ministry's Department of International Organizations before becoming a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1992. He later served as the permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations from 1994 to 2004.