Lavrov Says Russia's Terms Unchanged as US Clears 500 Patriot Missiles for Ukraine

The United States cleared the sale of 500 Patriot PAC-3 missiles to Ukraine on Friday, the same day Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow's terms for ending the war had not moved since the campaign began. Lavrov, speaking to reporters at a G20 meeting in Atlanta, tied the two developments together, saying sanctions and arms shipments to Kyiv were blocking progress on a settlement.

Lavrov said Ukraine's leadership was complicating preparations for a new round of talks. "This kind of attitude doesn't really help much in preparing for negotiations," he said, referring to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's repeated statements that Ukraine is buying more weapons to strike inside Russia. "Our position is known, but what Ukraine intends to bring to the negotiating table, I don't know," Lavrov said, according to Russian news agencies.

Russia's position "was unchanged from the very start of the special military operation," Lavrov said, using Moscow's term for its invasion. He added that Russia cannot accept Ukraine as a "military threat to the lawful security interests of the Russian Federation." On Washington, Lavrov said, "Fundamental issues are not being resolved. Sanctions remain, all the sanctions from (former President Joe) Biden are echoed by the current administration." He also noted that intelligence sharing between the US and Ukraine has expanded.

Zelenskiy said this week that he wants a trilateral meeting with US and Russian negotiators in Abu Dhabi between November 6 and 10, and he asked that European representatives join the discussion of how the war ends. Both Russia and Ukraine have said they will attend three-sided talks with the United States, which would be the first such session since early this year.

The State Department announced the Patriot sale on Friday. At the G20 in Atlanta, foreign ministers skipped the traditional group photo; some said they did not want to appear in the picture alongside Lavrov.