Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that the Kremlin is “ready to reach a deal” with the U.S. on Ukraine, though he also said some elements need to be “fine tuned.”
“The President of the United States believes, and I think rightly so, that we are moving in the right direction,” Lavrov said in an interview Thursday with “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
The comments came after Russia struck Kyiv overnight Thursday, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 70, in the deadliest assault on the Ukrainian capital in months as President Trump pushes a proposal for an end to the war.
Asked by Brennan what made it worth killing civilians after Ukraine had said in March that it’s ready for a ceasefire, Lavrov said “we only target military goals or civilian sites used by the military,” adding that “President Putin expressed this for so many times, and this is not different this time as well.”
Lavrov suggested that the attack was intentional, arguing that “if this was a target used by the Ukrainian military,” then the minister of defense and commanders in the field “have the right to attack them.”
Still, on the talks with Ukraine, there are “several signs that we are moving in the right direction,” Lavrov said. Among them, he cited Mr. Trump as “probably the only leader on Earth who recognized the need to address the root causes of this situation.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump issued a rare rebuke of the Russian president in a post on Truth Social Thursday morning, saying he’s “not happy” with the Kyiv strikes, while noting that they took place as he worked to reach a peace deal. It was “very bad timing,” he said and addressed Putin, saying, “Vladimir, STOP!”
Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, after first sending troops into eastern Ukraine in 2014. Russia has claimed its offensive invasion was provoked by Ukraine and the West, an assertion that has been rejected by the U.S. and Europe.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly said he believes Russia wants peace and continues to publicly criticize Ukraine’s democratically elected leader, President Volodmyr Zelenskyy, in spite of Ukraine’s acceptance of his proposed 30-day ceasefire. And along the campaign trail, he pledged to negotiate an end to the war in a day. But almost 100 days into his administration, an agreement eludes him.
On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance warned that Russia and Ukraine must reach a peace deal, as envoys from the U.K., France, the U.S, Ukraine and Germany met in London. Vance said the White House has “issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it’s time for them to either say yes, or for the United States to walk away from this process.”
Vance said the window for diplomacy was closing, and the U.S. envisions a freeze of military conflict more or less along existing lines. The Institute for the Study of War estimates that Russia holds roughly 18% of Ukrainian territory. In the meantime, U.S. envoy Keith Kellogg met in London with European allies and Ukraine on Wednesday. European partners are concerned that the U.S. position is focused on pressuring Ukraine, which is the victim of the Russian invasion, and not extracting any concessions to date from the aggressor.
Later Wednesday, Mr. Trump accused Zelenskyy of prolonging the conflict by saying he wouldn’t accept Russian control of Crimea as part of a ceasefire agreement. Crimea, located in Ukraine’s southern peninsula, has been occupied by Russia since 2014.
Mr. Trump said in a post that the U.S. had not asked Zelenskyy to recognize Crimea as Russian territory, though he also said, “Crimea was lost years ago,” while Obama was president. Mr. Trump said the parties are “very close to a Deal, but the man with ‘no cards to play’ should now, finally, GET IT DONE.”
Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon that “we’re putting a lot of pressure on Russia,” although it was unclear what pressure he was referencing. The U.S. has not placed new sanctions on Russia, and the president has argued he considers it a concession by Putin that he has not seized Ukraine in its entirety. Mr. Trump reiterated that he thinks Russia “wants to make a deal,” but “it takes two to tango.”
“You have to have Ukraine want to make a deal too, and they’re being hit very hard, and I do believe they want to make a deal,” the president said.
Zelenskyy reposted on social media a 2018 statement by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about Crimea that said, “the United States reaffirms as policy its refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over territory seized by force in contravention of international law.”
That policy of arming Ukraine, and rejecting Russia’s seizure of territory by force seems to have changed during the second Trump administration.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who joined the president Thursday at the bilateral meeting with Norway’s prime minister in the Oval Office, added that “this war is endable,” citing a “great meeting” on Wednesday, and meetings to come over the weekend.
“We’ve shown them the finish line, we need both of them to say yes,” Rubio said. “But what happened last night with those missile strikes should remind everybody of why this war needs to end.”
