Russia wants to know if Donald Trump has really changed his stance on the Ukraine war after French President Emmanuel Macron suggested at this month’s G7 summit that the US president had done so, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
Macron, host of the G7 summit in France, said Trump had acknowledged during the talks there that Russia did not want peace in Ukraine and that this marked “a real change in approach” from the US.
Trump himself urged Russia to make peace with Ukraine after having what he described as a “very good” meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, comments that sparked cautious optimism among G7 leaders that a peace deal could be struck.
“As far as Ukraine is concerned, we want to understand what happened in Evian,” Lavrov said at an event in Moscow on Wednesday.
“The Americans haven’t yet told us what they took away from the summit in Evian or what their future course of action will be,” he said.
Lavrov also quoted Macron as saying that understandings reached last August between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, had been “buried” at Evian.
Russian officials regularly refer to the “Spirit of Anchorage” for what Moscow interpreted as the basis for a possible agreement that would see Ukrainian forces withdraw from the remainder of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine in return for Moscow freezing the battle lines elsewhere.
Kiev has repeatedly said it will not hand over any of its territory to Russia without a fight.
