A meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in New York was “constructive,” a top official in Moscow said, even as the Kremlin describes NATO as at war with Russia over Ukraine.
“There was a constructive atmosphere, truly a working one,” said Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, state-run news agency TASS reported, adding that there was an emphasis on discussing Ukraine following the recent Putin-Trump summit in Anchorage, Alaska.
Zakharova, whose remarks were originally in Russian, continued that the talks covered “as the American side put it, work on addressing and eliminating the root causes of the crisis” in Ukraine.
Russia sees what it calls the “root causes” as Ukrainian efforts to join the U.S.-led NATO alliance, which Moscow regards as a major national security threat, and the alleged persecution of Russian culture there. A large ethnic Russian population lives in Ukraine, mostly in its east.
The Kremlin has in recent days characterized NATO as at war with Russia as tensions sharply escalated between the two nuclear-armed sides. NATO states have accused Russia of multiple serious airspace violations, which Moscow calls unfounded, intended to provoke and test the strength of the alliance over its support for Ukraine.
This is a developing article. Updates to follow.