Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blamed the US and other Western allies of Ukraine for undermining the prospects for peace talks in the early months of the war.
“It’s widely known that we supported the proposal of the Ukrainian side to barter at an early stage of the special military operation, and by the end of March each delegations agreed on the rules for settling this conflict,” Lavrov said on Monday during a visit to South Africa.
“It’s widely known and openly publicized that our American, British and a few European colleagues told Ukraine that it was too early for an agreement, and the agreement that was almost agreed was never reconsidered by the Kiev regime,” he added.
![Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in South Africa on Monday that Ukraine and Russia were on the brink of talks last March, but Kiev's allies in the West advised against it.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/sergey-lavrov-pretoria-south-africa.jpg?w=1024)
![Lavrov made the comments during his trip to Pretoria to meet his South African counterpart Naledi Pandor.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/sergey-lavrov-naledi-pandor-south-africa.jpg?w=1024)
Lavrov’s remarks about Russia’s alleged readiness to affix the negotiating table echoed President Vladimir Putin’s statements last yr.
Although Russia has repeatedly said it’s open to talks, each Ukraine and the US say they see no signs from Moscow that it’s serious about negotiating, and suspect Putin of attempting to buy time to regroup after a series of defeats and failures in war.
During a press conference in Pretoria, Lavrov stated that Ukraine was rejecting peace talks.
![Almost a year after the start of the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at a meeting of the Ramstein group, which coordinates military aid to Ukraine.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/zelenskyy-germany-autin-stoltenberg-milley.jpg?w=1024)
“The longer they (Ukrainians) refuse, the harder it’ll be to seek out an answer,” Lavrov told reporters.
Russia has repeatedly rejected Ukrainian and Western demands for an entire withdrawal from all parts of Ukraine and a cessation of hostilities as preconditions for any bilateral dialogue.
President Biden has signaled he can be willing to take a seat down with Putin if the Russian leader shows he’s serious about ending the nearly year-long invasion.
In his public comments on Monday, Lavrov also said that the conflict between Moscow and the West can not be known as a “hybrid war” but is closer to an actual war because he blew up Ukraine’s allies for sending billions of dollars for weapons to Kiev.
![A woman walks past destroyed buildings in the mining town of Toreck.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/ukraine-war-destruction-toretsk.jpg?w=1024)
Only days earlier, Lavrov had caused widespread condemnation by arguing that the United States had formed a coalition of European countries to unravel the “Russian query” in the same way that Adolf Hitler sought the “Final Solution” of eradicating Europe’s Jews.
The White House was quick to react, denouncing Lavrov’s comments as “really offensive.”
“It’s almost so absurd that it is not price responding to, aside from the genuinely offensive way he tried to portray us in terms of Hitler and the Holocaust,” said White House spokesman John Kirby.
With postal wires