Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s answer to a question from Andrew Napolitano during an interview on Channel One’s Bolshaya Igra programme, Moscow, September 8, 2026

Question: Recently, US President Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, visited Moscow and met with President Vladimir Putin. What can you tell us about the outcome of their visit?

Sergey Lavrov: Much of the opening part of the talks was broadcast on television, including remarks by President of Russia Vladimir Putin and the responses from Mr Witkoff and Mr Kushner. Aide to the President of the Russian Federation Yury Ushakov, who took part in the meeting, subsequently provided detailed comments on the talks.

It is our diplomatic tradition to limit ourselves to what we have agreed to make public. I do not want to follow the example of those who are now speculating about what Mr Witkoff and Mr Kushner brought to Moscow and what they subsequently took to Kiev. One woman, a member of the Verkhovnaya Rada, has already said that what they brought was far worse than what Ukraine had previously rejected.

Speculation continues. The American side has said nothing about any further diplomatic steps. The French, however, have already announced from the Élysée Palace that they were involved and that, according to the Americans, direct negotiations with the United States will definitely resume after the Russian State Duma elections. I leave all of this to the conscience of the Élysée Palace, especially since it has repeatedly become “famous” for its less-than-ethical conduct when it comes to the substance of telephone calls and other conversations.

The substance of the discussions is based – and I can say this with confidence – on the position that President Donald Trump set out on the Ukraine issue immediately after returning to the Oval Office. First, he said that any attempt to draw Ukraine into the North Atlantic Alliance should be abandoned. He reminded everyone that this had been clear long before Russian President Vladimir Putin: the issue was closed, and there was no need to try to revive it.

The second element of the US position is the need to recognise the realities on the ground. And I want to emphasise that this is not about territory.

Some say that Russia has already taken certain territories and that we should simply stop where we are. But this is not about territory. When we talk about the realities on the ground, we are talking about people who, immediately after the February 2014 coup, were labelled “subhuman”, “creatures”, and terrorists. When they refused to accept the outcome of an illegal coup, the army, fighter jets, and artillery were deployed against them, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law. Those were people who were simply not regarded as humans.

Petr Poroshenko, who was elected president shortly afterwards in 2014, said that their children – the children of true Ukrainians – would go to clean schools and kindergartens, while the children of those living in Donbass would be left to rot in basements. So how do the Europeans expect to bring these people back under the regime when they call for the restoration of the 1991 borders? Do they simply want to hand these territories over to the Nazis? Or do they want to punish these people for seeking to preserve their freedom, their culture, and their sense of belonging to the Russian world?

I have spoken about this many times. What I want to emphasise is that the realities on the ground, which US President Donald Trump and his team, as far as we can tell, continue to recognise – as they did in Alaska – concern the people and the views they expressed in referendums. This applies to Crimea, the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and, of course, the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. The fact that the Americans base their approach on these realities in all their contacts with us, particularly in their discussions with President Vladimir Putin, is something that we naturally view positively and that makes us willing to continue our dialogue with them. They recognise these fundamental principles and are trying to help find solutions based on them. I believe this approach deserves support.

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