UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he saw no appetite for peace from Russia in Ukraine after listening to a speech by Russia’s top diplomat at a tense Group of 20 (G20) meeting in South Africa on Thursday.
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Lammy was speaking to reporters after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addressed other senior diplomats in a closed-door session at the G20 foreign ministers meeting in Johannesburg.
“I have to say when I listened to what the Russians and what Lavrov have just said in the chamber this afternoon, I don’t see an appetite to really get to that peace,” Lammy said.
Lammy said Lavrov left his seat in the meeting room when it was Lammy’s turn to speak. No details of Lavrov’s speech were released.
The two-day gathering on Thursday and Friday comes days after landmark bilateral talks between the United States and Russia over ending the war in Ukraine. Those talks sidelined Washington’s European allies and Ukraine, who were not involved.
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US President Donald Trump has further upended the West’s position by criticising Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and falsely blaming Ukraine for the full-scale invasion by Russia. The war’s third anniversary is next week.