Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday accused European leaders of making “clumsy attempts” to change US President Donald Trump’s position on Ukraine. “We have only seen aggressive escalation of the situation and rather clumsy attempts to change the position of the US president,” he said, referring to Trump’s meeting on Monday with European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “We did not hear any constructive ideas from the Europeans there,” he said.

He warned that discussing any Western security guarantees for Ukraine without Russian involvement was a “road to nowhere”. “The West understands perfectly well that seriously discussing security guarantees without the Russian Federation is a utopia, a road to nowhere,” Lavrov said. “We cannot agree that it is now suggested to solve collective security issues without the Russian Federation,” he said.

Meanwhile, Russian Special Presidential Representative for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries Kirill Dmitriev via his Telegram channel accused European leaders of seeking to undermine peace talks and the normalization of relations between Moscow and Washington. “European leaders are making every effort to prevent peace talks and the normalization of relations between Russia and the United States, covering themselves with talk of ‘distrust’ of Russia,” he said.