US willing to look at ‘essence of the problem’, Lavrov sayspublished at 09:44 British Summer Time

09:44 BST

Vitaliy Shevchenko
Russia editor, BBC Monitoring

Sergei Lavrov wearing navy suit and navy tie speakingImage source, Reuters

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has praised the US and criticised European nations for their positions on Ukraine.

Speaking at a news conference in Kazakhstan, he said that the EU and the UK are “completely ignoring the underlying causes of the current situation”, while the United States “is willing to look into the essence of the problem”.

Lavrov insisted that Ukraine would be required to make territorial concessions as part of any peace settlement, and suggested that the US supported this: “They understand that returning to the borders of 1991, as Zelensky is still demanding, is impossible”.

According to him, Ukraine settlement “must be reliable, strong, lasting, which can only be achieved by removing the underlying causes of this conflict”.

On 1 April, Lavrov’s deputy Sergei Ryabkov said US proposals on Ukraine “completely lacked” suggestions on how to resolve them.