Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and his German counterpart have met on the sidelines of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly.
It was the first meeting between the two countries at this level since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than four years ago.
Lavrov said the German foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, had requested the meeting a day earlier.
According to the Russian minister, Wadephul reiterated Berlin’s positions on Ukraine and requested that Russia make some concessions on the Ukraine front and on the safe passage of ships and tankers in the Black Sea.
Wadephul said on social media that he had conveyed to Lavrov when they met that Russia “must end its war of aggression against Ukraine and cease its hostile actions against Germany and its allies.”
The meeting came as Europe has grown increasingly anxious about Russia launching a new wave of attacks on Ukraine, and as European leaders are stepping up their warnings about Moscow’s shadow war and threats against Nato nations.
The US has also raised concerns about Russia’s alliance with Iran and how it has provided Tehran intelligence and satellite imagery for its attacks targeting US bases in the Middle East.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has not attended the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly since his country invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Buildings damaged by Russian aerial bombardments in Sloviansk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Saturday. Photograph: María Senovilla/EPA
Lavrov addressed the gathering in New York after his meeting with Wadephul, giving a speech filled with familiar attacks on the West and defences of his country’s war on Ukraine. He said Russia’s fight would be “seen through to the end” and until it eliminated what he said were threats to its security.
At a later news conference at the UN, Lavrov said that in prior meetings with US officials, including secretary of state Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff and president Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the officials had described the Ukraine war as “Biden’s war, not our war”.
Trump has blamed former president Joe Biden for the war between Russia and Ukraine and said that if he had been in office, it would not have happened.
But Lavrov added that some of Washington’s actions, such as enforcing new sanctions on Russian oil companies, contradicted the diplomatic messaging.
Lavrov said at the news conference that Russia and the US have regular diplomatic engagements and should work together on cases where their interests coincide and prevent a confrontational approach when they diverge.
During his speech at the UN, he said there was a new multipolar world order taking shape and the influence of the United States as the world’s lone superpower was diminishing.
“The Western minority, which dominated for 500 years, thanks to others’ resources, continues to try to maintain its privileges and to impose its own rules on everyone else,” Lavrov said.
He criticised the UN and its leadership, and said the Security Council should expand its number of permanent members to include India, Brazil and countries from Africa.
A photograph of of captured Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro shared by US president Donald Trump
Lavrov also denounced the US, without mentioning Trump, for capturing Venezuela’s former leader, Nicolás Maduro. He also criticized it for launching the war on Iran, bombing the country’s nuclear sites and killing its former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which he called “another unacceptable manifestation of coercive diktat”.
Lavrov announced Russia and Belarus and countries aligned with their global views had adopted a declaration in New York on Friday to develop a framework based on new geopolitical realities called the “Eurasian Charter of Diversity and Multipolarity in the 21st Century,” and called on other countries to join them.
China’s vice president, Han Zheng, also addressed the General Assembly on Saturday and, without mentioning the United States or Trump, sharply condemned the war in Iran and the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against Cuba.
Referring to the US as the “relevant country,” he said it must immediately lift its blockade on Cuba.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times
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