Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that the Kremlin is “ready to reach a deal” with the United States on Ukraine, but that some details need to be “fine tuned.”
“The President of the United States believes, and I believe correctly, that we are moving in the right direction,” Lavrov said in a Thursday interview with “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Lavrov declined to reveal what was being discussed in negotiations or whether a deal was imminent. He stated that the negotiations are “not supposed to be public.”
“The negotiations continue, and until the end of the negotiations, we cannot disclose what it is about,” the Russian foreign minister said.
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 cease-fire proposal.
When asked by Brennan why it was worth killing civilians after Ukraine said in March it was ready for a ceasefire, Lavrov said, “We only target military goals or civilian sites used by the military,” adding, “President Putin has stated this many times, and it is not different this time.”
Lavrov suggested that the attack was deliberate, claiming that “if this was a target used by the Ukrainian military,” the minister of defense and field commanders “have the right to attack them.”
Nonetheless, the talks with Ukraine show “several signs that we are moving in the right direction,” according to Lavrov. Among them, he cited President 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, stating that he is “not happy” with the Kyiv strikes, despite the fact that they occurred while he was working to reach a peace agreement. It was “very bad timing,” he said, addressing Putin with “Vladimir, STOP!”
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, after initially sending troops into eastern Ukraine in 2014. Russia has claimed that its offensive invasion was provoked by Ukraine and the West, but the United States and Europe have rejected this claim.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly stated that he believes Russia wants peace, and he continues to publicly criticize Ukraine’s democratically elected leader, President Volodmyr Zelenskyy, despite Ukraine accepting his proposed 30-day ceasefire. On the campaign trail, he promised to negotiate an end to the war in one day. However, despite nearly 100 days in office, he has yet to reach an agreement.
Vice President JD Vance warned Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday that they must reach a peace agreement, as envoys from the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Ukraine, and Germany met in London. Vance reported that the administration had “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 stated that the window for diplomacy was closing, and the United States expects a freeze in military conflict along existing lines. The Institute for the Study of War estimates that Russia controls approximately 18% of Ukrainian territory.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, US envoy Keith Kellogg met in London with European allies as well as Ukraine. European partners are concerned that the US position is focused on pressuring Ukraine, the victim of the Russian invasion, rather than extracting any concessions from the aggressor.
Later Wednesday, Trump accused Zelenskyy of prolonging the conflict by refusing to accept Russian control of Crimea as part of a cease-fire agreement. Crimea, located on Ukraine’s southern peninsula, has been occupied by Russia since 2014.
Mr. Trump stated in a post that the US had not asked Zelenskyy to recognize Crimea as Russian territory, but he also stated that “Crimea was lost years ago,” during Obama’s presidency. Mr. Trump stated that 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,” but it wasn’t clear what pressure he meant.
The United States has not imposed new sanctions on Russia, and the president has stated that he considers Putin’s refusal to fully seize Ukraine a concession. Mr. Trump reiterated that he believes 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,” according to the president.
Zelenskyy reposted on social media a 2018 statement by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about Crimea, which stated, “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.”
The policy of arming Ukraine and rejecting Russia’s use of force to seize territory appears to have changed during the second Trump administration.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who joined the president Thursday in the Oval Office for a bilateral meeting with Norway’s prime minister, added that “this war is endable,” citing a “great meeting” on Wednesday and meetings planned for the weekend.
“We’ve shown them the finish line, we need both of them to say yes,” Marco Rubio told reporters. “But what happened last night with those missile strikes should remind everybody of why this war needs to end.”