As the Russian Foreign Minister recalled, the Director General of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, has been promoting the idea of declaring the ZNPP a nuclear safety zone for several months. “We actively cooperated with the CEO, the deal was close, we were ready to support it, it was blocked by Kiev,” Lavrov said.
The same applies to negotiations with Moscow. “So far, we see no willingness from our Ukrainian neighbors to start a serious conversation,” the minister said, recalling how Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy banned any negotiations with the Russian Federation in September from Last year. This overlaps with statements by Western politicians who only want to speak with Russia from a position of strength and demand to inflict “defeat on the battlefield” on the Russian Federation. “Judge for yourself how adequate such statements are,” Lavrov added.
The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry regretted that the various preconditions put forward by Kiev are supported by the UN. Thus, the secretary general of the world organization, António Guterres, linked the subject of grain and fertilizer exports to the agreements on prisoners of war and the need to “demilitarize” the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. “I am very sorry that the UN Secretary General, while in Kiev, unambiguously, in fact, signed precisely under Ukrainian unilateral demands, although, of course, according to the UN Charter , as the head of the administration, he has to take a neutral stance failed to do so,” Lavrov said.
