“The president has made it very clear that after an attack, or even a raid in the Kursk region, all talks are impossible,” Lavrov said on Russian state television on the sidelines of Putin’s visit to Azerbaijan on Monday.
Lavrov also said that Putin will soon make an “assessment of the situation”. Media reports about possible contact between the Russian and Ukrainian authorities with the help of Turkey and Qatar are nothing more than rumours, according to Lavrov.
That Putin has yet to comment on the crisis facing his military is not new. In the face of previous crises or military defeats, he has only spoken about it long afterwards, sometimes only when the crisis has passed.
Ukraine, which has been fighting Russian invasion forces for almost two and a half years, launched a counter-offensive two weeks ago, advancing into the western Russian region of Kursk.
It is the first time Ukrainian authorities have moved the war to Russian territory. Russia still occupies large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine.
Before the Ukrainian counterattack, Putin had demanded that the government in Kyiv cede additional Ukrainian territory as a precondition for peace talks.
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2024-08-21 06:50:30
