Lavrov held secret talks with former American officials - NBC News

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held secret talks with a group of former senior US security officials. It is reported by NBC News, citing sources. According to them, the purpose of the meeting was to lay the foundation for future peace talks on Ukraine.

According to the channel, the meeting lasted several hours. It discussed, among other things, the fate of the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia. The meeting was attended by former US Deputy Secretary of Defense Mary Beth Long, former diplomat and President of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haas, Europe expert Charles Kupchan and Russia expert Thomas Graham, as well as former White House and State Department officials.

On the Russian side, in addition to Lavrov, the talks were attended by the heads of major think tanks and research institutes, as well as a number of other unnamed representatives of the Russian foreign policy sphere close to the Kremlin.

As the channel notes, the meeting took place with the knowledge of the Joe Biden administration, but not at its direction. At the same time, the American participants in the talks reported on their results to the White House National Security Council.

In turn, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, called the reports of these negotiations "fake".

Peace talks between Moscow and Kiev began almost immediately after the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. In March, the negotiations were terminated at the initiative of the Ukrainian side. Since then, Kyiv has said it will resume negotiations only after the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory.

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