"Anybody who is sincerely interested in justice, including justice being established in the relations between Russia and Ukraine, which would involve, of course, stopping the Western policy of using Ukraine as an instrument of war against Russia, we would be ready to listen to," the minister said, TASS reported.
Lavrov recounted a remark by Russian President Vladimir Putin who had dismissed as untrue allegations that Russia is against negotiations. "Actually, (US Secretary of State) Antony Blinken said this in Davos a few days ago. It is not true," Lavrov maintained as he insisted that Russia had always emphasized that it would be ready to discuss "any serious proposal that would include the discussion of the situation on the ground, of the origin of this situation, and of reaching a solution that would guarantee legitimate, national interests of Russia and the Ukrainian people."
According to the Russian foreign minister, Russia has been warning its Western partners since 2007 or 2008, when NATO expansion was going too far, despite all the promises given by the North Atlantic Alliance to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev not to expand their lines. "Five waves of expansion, and then NATO at the last moment, at the end of 2021, found itself just on the borders of the Russian Federation," Lavrov continued. "The West has discredited itself completely," he concluded.
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