Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken

On February 12, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken upon the initiative of the US side.

The Russian minister stressed that the propaganda campaign concerning the “Russian aggression” against Ukraine, which had been launched by the United States and its allies, was pursuing provocative aims and encouraging the authorities in Kiev to sabotage the Minsk Agreements and to make pernicious attempts to resolve the “Donbass problem” by force.

According to the Russian foreign minister, the response from Washington and Brussels to the Russia-submitted draft Russian-US treaty and draft agreements with NATO on security guarantees ignores points of key importance to Russia, primarily those on NATO’s non expansion and on the non-deployment of strike weapon system in the vicinity of Russian borders. It was emphasised that these issues would be the focal point of the Russian assessment of the documents received from the United States and NATO, an assessment that would be communicated to the colleagues.  Sergey Lavrov reminded his opposite number about the inadmissibility of actions violating commitments taken at the highest level on the indivisibility of security in the Euro-Atlantic region.

The two foreign ministers also discussed certain current issues of bilateral relations.