Russia Prefers Diplomatic Settlement

From Krasnaya zvezda, Nov. 26, 2025, p. 7. Complete text:

Editors’ Note. – On Nov. 21, 2025, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave an interview to the YouTube channel of the Association Dialogue Franco-Russe, in which he presented Russia’s position on a number of pressing international issues. Below are excerpts from the foreign minister’s responses to several questions.

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On a Ukrainian settlement.

We continue to hold the position that a diplomatic settlement is, of course, preferable. The meeting in Alaska [between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin; see Vol. 77, No. 33, pp. 3‑8 – Trans.] was preceded by a visit to Moscow by US presidential special envoy [for the Middle East] Steve Witkoff [see Vol. 77, No. 32, pp. 3‑7], who brought direct instructions from US President Donald Trump. Mr. Witkoff came to his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin with specific settlement parameters that took into account our fundamental approaches – namely, the need to focus on addressing the root causes of this conflict, which we all know well.

The history of this drama began with the West’s attempt to absorb Ukraine into the North Atlantic alliance and to create a military threat to Russia on our borders, contrary to and in violation of all the promises made to the Soviet Union and the agreements reached with the Russian Federation within the framework of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe – agreements on the indivisibility of security and on the principle that no organization or country in Europe would strengthen its own security at the expense of others. This was affirmed at the highest level. NATO has done precisely the opposite.

The second root cause is the legislatively enshrined policy pursued by the Nazi regime in Kiev – brought to power by the West in February 2014 through a bloody, unconstitutional coup – which aims to eradicate all things Russian. Long before the special military operation [i.e., the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022; see Vol. 74, No. 8, pp. 9‑13 – Trans.], Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky directly advised Russian-speaking people to “go to Russia” if, despite being Ukrainian citizens, they identified with Russian culture. This was a direct appeal on his part. In a sense, both the Donetsk Basin and Novorossia are simply following his advice.

On US policy.

Donald Trump came to power with the slogan MAGA (Make America Great Again). He criticized [former US president] Joe Biden for his ideologically driven interference in global affairs, for imposing neoliberal approaches and for promoting neoliberal ideas and elites. Trump said that the US would not engage in such practices under his leadership. It would do only what was beneficial and aligned with national interests.

In practice, of course, the methods have changed. There is no longer any ideology. USAID and other tools of ideological pressure on everyone and everything on all continents – tools that were closely tied to Democratic Party policies – have been dismantled. But the goal of dictating its will to everyone remains very much intact and, if anything, has become even more apparent now that the ideological facade has been stripped away.

Their approach can be described in various ways, but the essence is that America must be number one everywhere, and everyone must obey it. This approach is applied not only to Europe, but to the rest of the world as well. The difference is that Europe is more dependent on the US – in terms of security and foreign policy. In this case, we are talking about Europe’s policy on Ukraine. No one listens to Europe, because European elites have staked everything on their belief that they can inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia using the hands and bodies of the Nazi regime in Kiev.

They rejected even the possibility of negotiations. In April 2022, then-British prime minister Boris Johnson simply forbade President Zelensky from signing a document that had already been initialed and was based on principles of settlement proposed by the Ukrainians themselves.² That was Britain’s role. It made itself known as well. Britain enjoys manipulating Europe just as the US does.

It is in the interests of the US to attract as much investment to its economy as possible. It recently held a summit with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Every visit of this kind is accompanied by announcements of investments worth billions or even trillions of dollars. This is presented as a way of bringing money into the American economy.

Every country should be thinking about how to make its economy independent, prosperous and productive – how to bring back (in the case of the US) the manufacturing capabilities that were scattered around the world in countries where labor is many times cheaper than in America, which made the goods produced by American monopolies and corporations using cheap foreign labor competitive.

We’ll see what the situation looks like if and when President Trump and his team carry out their plan to bring manufacturing back to American soil – what the costs and losses will be, and how those will affect final prices. The use of sanctions – which didn’t start with Trump (although he did impose sanctions on Russia during his first term under the pretext of “Ukrainian affairs”) – intensified significantly under Biden. . . .

Today we are all witnessing something close to chaos in international trade and investment. The US’s actions are not necessarily aimed solely at subjugating Europe. Their goal is to extract benefits wherever and however they can – and to cash in.

The same applies to foreign policy. All eight wars that Trump “put a stop to” (and we do appreciate his desire not to start new wars, as his predecessors did, but to end them) were suspended for a certain time. Ceasefires were declared. In the Middle East, between Pakistan and Afghanistan, between Cambodia and Thailand, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda – hostilities were paused virtually everywhere. But these initiatives didn’t address the root causes. Problems have already started to emerge along the Cambodian-Thai border and between Pakistan and Afghanistan. And the situation is far from calm in terms of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to put it mildly.

So the desire to immediately stop the bloodshed is certainly worthy of encouragement. But for a long-term resolution, much more painstaking, patient and measured efforts are needed.

On illusions about the West.

Our President Vladimir Putin is a very honest man. After the start of the special military operation, while speaking to an audience about the Minsk agreements [for a ceasefire in the Donetsk Basin; see Vol. 66, No. 37‑38, pp. 3‑6, and Vol. 67, No. 8, pp. 3‑7 – Trans.], Russia’s relations with the West and the Ukrainian issue as a whole, he said that, we had many illusions at the beginning stage of our relations with the West in the 2000s. Over time, those illusions began to fade, but we still held out hope – primarily that our counterparts, especially the Western Europeans, would be able to reach agreements and (I stress) act in good faith. And, as the president said, those hopes were extinguished in February 2022. Going forward, our relationship with the West will not be what it was before February 2022.

This is a very powerful admission. It shows that right up until February 2022 – until we realized that we had no other option but to launch the special military operation – that hope remained alive.

It took concrete form in specific initiatives in December 2021, as the West was sounding the alarm around the world, claiming that Russia was preparing for an intervention that had to be prevented. At that time, CIA Director [William] Burns came to us with a warning. We were honest in stating that our priority was to prevent the creation of military threats on our borders from NATO through the militarization of Ukraine and its subordination to NATO doctrines, which explicitly labeled Russia if not an enemy, then at least an adversary.

Also in December 2021, in order to demonstrate that there was an alternative, we, on the instruction of President Putin, prepared draft treaties between Russia and NATO, and between Russia and the US offering guaranteed solutions to security problems and threats [see Vol. 73, No. 51‑52, pp. 3‑9]. (The president had instructed diplomats, the military and intelligence officials to do this during his address at the Foreign Ministry in November 2021. – Ed.) In essence, these draft treaties were aimed at codifying the political commitments solemnly signed by every European country, as well as the US and Canada, within the OSCE framework. These commitments were first signed in 1999 and reaffirmed at the 2010 OSCE summit in Astana.

But nothing changed. As has now become clear, NATO continued to pursue yet another wave of expansion. And when, still clinging to the hope that our partners would act in good faith, we pointed out that they were flagrantly violating their own signed commitments through their actions, they replied that those were political commitments, not legal obligations. That is refined cynicism.

On the Soviet Union’s role in the victory in World War II.

As for the actual contribution, in February 1945 there was a conference on reparations, where statistics were presented based on analyses of battles and combat operations. It was shown that Germany spent at least 10 times more “man-days” or “soldier-days” fighting on the Soviet front than on all other fronts combined. Four-fifths of German tanks and 75% of German aircraft were destroyed on the Soviet front. There is also data showing that 75% of all the military effort of the anti-Hitler coalition was borne by the Soviet Union. It is clear that this was a decisive role. We – the peoples of the Soviet Union – defeated over 620 divisions, of which more than 500 were German.

As for China’s role, 90% of all efforts against militarist Japan came from China. Russia and China ended World War II together by defeating the Kwantung Army. There is correspondence in which then-US president [Franklin] Roosevelt wrote to Stalin as early as mid-1942, saying that the Russian Army was bearing the main burden of the war. Then-British prime minister Winston Churchill also wrote to Stalin in the fall of 1944 saying that it was the Russians who had “torn the guts” out of the German military machine. But there is a difference: Roosevelt was not known for duplicity, whereas Churchill, as we now know from archival documents, was already at that time toying with the idea that while the Soviets had indeed “torn the guts out” of the German war machine, the West might one day want to do the same to the Soviet Union. Even then, they were planning Operation Unthinkable.

Yes, they were forced to become our allies. They hesitated for a long time about whether to open a second front, waited to see which way the balance would tip, and eventually sided with the likely winner. But at the same time, both the Americans under president Truman and the British under prime minister Churchill were already planning attacks against the Soviet Union.

¹[Novorossia (New Russia) is the historical name of an area along the northern Black Sea coast that Russia acquired from Turkey by a series of peace treaties in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Most of it is now part of Ukraine. – Trans.]

²[This assertion traces back to press coverage of a 2023 interview with Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia, in which he said that his team had already rejected Russian demands due to constitutional constraints and a lack of trust in their Russian counterparts before discussing the talks with Johnson; see Vol. 75, No. 48‑49, pp. 6‑7. – Trans.]