This article by Sergey Lavrov was initially planned to be published in the Brussels-based “Politico-Europe”, but via a last minute decision of the outlet’s editorial team the publication was cancelled.
Maria Zaharova commented: “Here’s the proof: Brussels that talks about democracy & pluralism is blocking information from Russia”
Some Reflections on Resolving the Ukrainian Crisis, Europe and Global Security
At a meeting in London on 7 June 2026, the leaders of Britain, France, and Germany, as well as Vladimir Zelensky, laid out five preconditions for Russia to secure a “just and lasting peace” in Ukraine. The united Europe now presents this list of demands as the basis for dialogue with Moscow.
Background
More than two decades of negotiation with Europe, as part of the collective West, leads to only one conclusion: engaging Russia in dialogue has served as a diplomatic smokescreen for the geopolitical expansion of Western institutions, above all NATO and the European Union, eastwards, right up to Russia’s borders.
Europe’s complicity in fuelling the Ukrainian crisis is undeniable. Together with the United States, European countries orchestrated the Orange Revolution in Kiev in 2004. To create an anti-Russian bridgehead in Ukraine, they spent years buying off politicians and entire parties, rewriting history and educational curricula, cultivating and nurturing Ukrainian nationalism, and went to great lengths to pull away Ukraine away from Russia.
In 2013, the European Union rejected outright our proposal for a compromise on the association agreement – a deal Brussels had long been pressing Viktor Yanukovich to sign. It is worth recalling: Ukraine was offered unilateral market opening, without reciprocal commitments – terms that would have proved incompatible with Kiev’s continued membership in the CIS free-trade zone. When Viktor Yanukovich requested a deferral, the Europeans incited street riots which swiftly escalated into a coup d’état in Kiev in February 2014.
Germany, France and Poland then proved themselves to be equally treacherous. Having guaranteed that the agreement struck between the opposition and Viktor Yanukovich would be honoured, they washed their hands of it the instant that same opposition, their own handiwork, took power. “Democracy,” they shrugged, “takes unexpected turns.”
Europe thereafter lent its backing to the new authorities. In Odessa on 2 May 2014, the burning alive of dozens of innocent supporters of closer ties with Russia did not draw a single word of condemnation from European capitals.
As co-guarantors of the 2015 Minsk Agreements, France and Germany effectively encouraged the Ukrainian regime to sabotage its own commitments. As Angela Merkel and François Hollande later conceded – after the special military operation had already begun – the implementation by Kiev of the Minsk Agreements, unanimously approved by the UN Security Council, was never genuinely intended. The objective, they admitted, was merely to buy time: to shore up the Armed Forces of Ukraine and flood them with Western weaponry.
Russia, for its part, explored every diplomatic avenue to defuse Europe’s security crisis. However, in January 2022, the United States and NATO rejected Russia’s proposal for legally binding mutual security guarantees. European NATO members actively endorsed that rebuff.
Following the launch of the special military operation, the united Europe threw its support behind the British Prime Minister’s efforts to sabotage the Istanbul negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Boris Johnson’s appeal to Kiev – “don’t sign anything, just fight” – slammed the door on genuine diplomacy for the foreseeable future.