West must recognise Russia holds ‘strategic initiative’ in Ukraine: Russian foreign minister

MOSCOW – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an interview published late on Dec 29, said the West must understand that Russia holds the strategic initiative in Ukraine as discussions move forward on a possible settlement.

Mr Lavrov, in a wide-ranging interview with state news agency RIA, also said Moscow was waiting for a reply from the United States to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal in September to extend, for a year, limits in a strategic arms pact.

Mr Lavrov told RIA that Ukraine and Western countries had to come to terms with the fact that Russia held the initiative on the battlefield as the fourth anniversary of the Kremlin’s 2022 invasion of its smaller neighbour approaches.

“Our principled position remains unchanged. The strategic initiative rests wholly with the Russian army, and the West understands this,” Mr Lavrov said.

Ukraine and Western countries, he said, had to take account of the realities on the ground – Russia holds about 19 per cent of Ukrainian territory and has annexed four regions of the country as well as Crimea, which was seized in 2014.

Mr Putin told his army

on Dec 29 to press on with a campaign to take full control of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.

Key issues on territory remain unresolved in talks that have been taking place for months, with the latest meeting on Dec 28 between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the United States.

Mr Lavrov said earlier in the day that Russia would change its negotiating stance – but not quit the talks – after what Moscow described as a

Ukrainian attack on Mr Putin’s residence

in northern Russia. Mr Zelensky denied that any such attack took place.

In his comments to RIA, Mr Lavrov said the US backed the proposal for Ukraine to stage a new election after the expiry of Mr Zelensky’s term in office.

“The US administration is leading active and goal-oriented intermediary work,” he said, citing telephone contacts between Washington and Moscow.

Mr Lavrov also again stressed that a settlement required an end to any notion of a NATO presence in Ukraine and that the country had to adopt a neutral, non-aligned status.

And Russia and the US, he said, must not confine their joint work to the Ukraine issue.

“Our countries are major nuclear states, permanent members of the UN Security Council and bear responsibility for upholding international peace and security,” he said.

Other countries were waiting for a US reply on strategic weapons talks, he said.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Mr Lavrov told the RIA news agency. “Until the treaty expires, it is logical to give the American side the opportunity to complete an all-encompassing examination of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s initiative to freeze for a year the qualitative limits of the (New Start) treaty on a voluntary basis.” REUTERS