“The spirit of Anchorage is evaporating”: Lavrov commented on the talks to end the war in Ukraine

Russia has no grounds to suspect that the current talks on ending the war in Ukraine are merely a smokescreen on the part of the Americans.

This was stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during an ambassadors’ roundtable on the settlement of the situation around Ukraine.

At the same time, the diplomat added that “the spirit of Anchorage is evaporating.”

“In Anchorage, the spirit wasn’t the main thing by far. Spirit is the atmosphere—it was friendly, mutually respectful, constructive. But the spirit is evaporating,” the minister said.

Lavrov stressed that the Kremlin proceeds from what was proposed in Anchorage and sees the agreements reached there with the United States as the starting point for negotiations on a Ukrainian settlement. According to him, the understandings between the presidents of Russia and the United States, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, reached in Alaska, “imply serious compromises on Russia’s part,” but Ukraine and Europe “are making efforts to rewrite the Anchorage understandings.”

The minister also said that “Russia not only did not approve [them], it has not even seen with its own eyes” the security guarantees being discussed in Kyiv—despite the fact that the head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, Kyrylo Budanov, recently claimed that Russia had agreed to accept the security guarantees proposed by Washington.

As a reminder, Ukraine is also demanding guarantees from European countries that are prepared to send troops into Ukraine after the conflict ends. Apparently, Lavrov was referring to these. That is, judging by his words, the option of deploying European forces is not being discussed in the talks.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that peace negotiations are currently on pause because of the war in Iran.

Lavrov’s remarks about a “smokescreen” are a reaction to statements now being voiced in Russia claiming that the Americans used talks with Iran as a cover to prepare an attack, and that the United States is acting the same way toward Russia in negotiations over Ukraine.