Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov praised US President Donald Trump for saying that previous US support for Ukraine's bid to join the NATO military alliance was the main cause of the war in Ukraine.
Trump said he saw no way Russia could have allowed Ukraine to join NATO and blamed former Democratic President Joe Biden for allegedly changing the US position on Ukraine's NATO membership.
"He is the first, and so far, in my opinion, the only Western leader who has publicly and loudly said that one of the root causes of the Ukrainian situation was the previous administration's brazen line to drag Ukraine into NATO," Lavrov told lawmakers, Reuters reported.
"No Western leader has ever said that, but he has said it several times. That is already a signal that he understands our position," Lavrov said.
Amid talks with the United States in Riyadh on Tuesday, Russia demanded that NATO back down from a 2008 promise to one day grant Ukraine membership in the U.S.-led alliance and rejected the idea that NATO forces could serve as peacekeepers under some kind of ceasefire agreement.
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