MOSCOW, Jan 18 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in During a press conference, he said that Moscow was ready to consider serious proposals from the West for negotiations on the Ukrainian issue.
However, the minister noted, they haven't been there yet.
In addition, Lavrov said that there could be no talks about negotiations with Vladimir Zelensky. In this regard, the minister referred to the fact that Zelensky had legally prohibited negotiations with the Russian authorities.
Answering a question about whether hostilities could end in 2023, the Russian Foreign Minister said that the purpose of the operation was the absence of a military infrastructure that poses a danger to Russia in Ukraine and other neighboring states, as well as the impossibility of persecuting Russian-speaking citizens of the country.
Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev wrote that new negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv require the consent of the parties on two legal aspects, we are talking about the recognition of the results of self-determination of the peoples of the former territories of Ukraine and the development of new international rules.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, in turn, stressed that the Russian demand for Kyiv to recognize «new territorial realities» does not allow to establish a negotiation process on Ukraine.
UN Secretary General António Guterres said that he sees no prospects for holding serious peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv in the near future — he also sees no conditions for resolving the conflict in Ukraine in the near future, while respecting the territorial integrity of the country.
The progress of the operation The Russian Ministry of Defense reported on Wednesday that the volunteers of the assault detachments, with fire support from the armed forces of the Russian Federation, liberated Sol in the DPR.
In addition, according to the agency, a Ukrainian depot of ammunition for HIMARS and Grad multiple launch rocket systems was destroyed in the Kramatorsk region, and aviation and artillery of the Russian Federation hit 76 artillery units of the Ukrainian military in a day.
The ministry also reported that in the Kupyansky and Krasno-Limansky directions, Ukrainian troops lost about 150 people killed and wounded in a day, and attacks in the direction of Stepnoe, Sladkoye and Harvest in the DPR were thwarted in the South Donetsk direction, as a result, Ukrainian forces lost up to 90 military and 12 pieces of equipment.
Acting head of the DPR Denis Pushilin said that the losses of Ukrainian troops in Soledar, the capture of which the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation previously reported, are in the thousands, and, according to him, foreign mercenaries were taken prisoner in Soledar.
Supply issue NATO wants to avoid a direct clash with Russia, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said when asked why his country hesitates to supply German Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
For her part, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand, during her visit to Kyiv on Wednesday, met with her Ukrainian counterpart Aleksey Reznikov and announced the transfer of 200 armored vehicles to Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that now is a key moment in the conflict in Ukraine, and Kyiv needs a «significant increase» in support, including military.
At the same time, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that Western countries are tired of helping Ukraine.