Russia will welcome US assistance in the Ukrainian settlement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after talks with the head of German diplomacy Annalena Burbock. According to him, Washington has a decisive influence on Kiev, and Moscow will support if the States, in addition to existing formats, help move in this direction. Kommersant correspondent Elena Chernenko said whether the parties managed to reach any agreements following the meeting.
As for the talks between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his German counterpart Annalena Berbock, apparently, there is no talk of any new agreements. It can be said that it was an acquaintance, previously they only communicated by phone. Let me remind you that Burbock has been in office for literally more than 40 days. Prior to that, she had no experience in diplomacy, and, in fact, a visit to Russia as the German Foreign Minister was also a kind of test for her.
The German media actively wrote that this was the most difficult of all the trips that she had already managed to make in the past weeks. The parties checked their positions. We agreed that they have a lot of differences, including on key topics. This, of course, is the situation around Ukraine and Russian demands for security guarantees, as well as some issues that relate to bilateral issues.
Among them is the situation around the Russia Today TV channel and its German version, Russia Today Deutsch. The German authorities, as Burbock said, cannot help in any way to ensure that this channel receives broadcasting rights on the territory of the country. The Russian side accuses Berlin of literally deliberately preventing this.
That is, there are a lot of differences, no agreements have been reached.
In general, there was a feeling that Lavrov was not so much concerned about Germany, his new German counterpart, as about the American track.
In the near future, apparently, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry will talk by phone with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who will then go to Kiev and Berlin. But from today’s press conference, all the latest statements, one does not get the impression that Germany is striving here, as before, to play some kind of special role, the role of a kind of mediator, a bridge between Russia and Europe, Russia and the West.
Burbock spoke very carefully about Germany’s special responsibility in this regard, its capabilities, all the time relying on the Euro-Atlantic structures that the state is a part of, be it the European Union, NATO, the G7, and so on. That is, there is no special role for Germany here – everything depends on the negotiations between Moscow and Washington.
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