Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that there was no reason to be enthusiastic about US President Donald Trump's pressure on Europe and Ukraine as there was still a long way to go in talks on peace in Ukraine, RIA reported on Tuesday.
Here are some details:
The United States has brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine on various different drafts of a plan for ending the war in Ukraine, but no deal has yet been reached despite Trump's repeated promises to clinch one.
* "There is still a long way to go," Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
* Lavrov said that Trump had put Ukraine and Europe in their places but that such a move was no reason to embrace an "enthusiastic perception" of the situation.
* Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said that any deal would have to exclude NATO membership for Ukraine and rule out the deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine, Izvestia reported.
* At stake is how to end the deadliest war in Europe since World War Two, the future of Ukraine, the extent to which European powers are sidelined and whether or not a peace deal brokered by the United States will endure.
* Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, triggering the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the depths of the Cold War.
