Peter Wade
Sun 24 August 2025
ROLLING STONE
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov tried to defend his country’s assault on Ukraine under sharp questioning from Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker, with Welker eventually asking, “Either the Russian military has terrible aim or you are targeting civilians. Which is it?”
“This week, Russia escalated its attacks in Ukraine,” Welker said at the start of the interview. “Just this week. Russia bombed an American-owned factory near the Hungarian border. I’ve spoken to people who, frankly, see that as a slap in the face to President Trump, to the entire peace process. Isn’t it?”
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Lavrov said that Russia “never, ever… deliberately targeted any sites which are not linked to military abilities of Ukraine.”
“This is an electronics factory though, sir. This is an electronics factory. I’ve spoken to people on the ground there. It builds coffee machines, among other electronics. This is not a military site,” Welker responded.
Trump has told the press he expressed displeasure to Putin over the drone attack on the American-owned plant. “I told him I’m not happy about it,” Trump said Friday. “And I’m not happy about anything having to do with that war.”
Trump and Putin recently met at a summit in Alaska, but no tangible progress toward peace appears to have come from the meeting, despite the administration’s attempts to spin it as a success.
The president said on Friday that he would know more about progress toward a Ukraine-Russia agreement in two weeks. “Over the next two weeks we’re gonna find out which way it’s going to go, and I better be very happy,” he said. (Trump loves to claim that complex, intractable problems will be solved “in two weeks.”)
Under Welker’s questioning, Lavrov stood firm in his stance that somehow an American-owned factory was producing equipment for Ukraine.
“I understand that some people are really naive and when they see a coffee machine in the window, they believe that this is the place where coffee machines are produced,” he said. “Our intelligence has very good information, and we target only — as I said — either military enterprises, military sites or industrial enterprises directly involved in producing military equipment for Ukrainian army.”
But Welker continued to press. “Mr. Foreign Minister, here are the facts: close to 50,000 civilians have either been killed or injured in this war,” she said. “Russia has hit maternity wards, churches, schools, hospitals, a kindergarten just this past week. So either the Russian military has terrible aim or you are targeting civilians. Which is it?”
“Look, look, NBC is a very respectful structure, and I hope you are responsible for the words which you broadcast,” Lavrov said, getting testy. “I ask you to send us or to publicize the information to which you just referred because we never targeted the civilian targets of the kind you cited. You might be mixing, you know, the information because it is a fact that quite a number of churches were purposefully hit by the Ukrainian regime.”
Lavrov continued by asking for proof. Welker said that “we have reporters on the ground who’ve seen it with their own eyes.”
Russia’s assaults on civilians appear to be escalating. According to the United Nations, this past June saw the highest number of civilian casualties in the three years of the ongoing conflict. Two hundred and eighty-six civilians were killed, while another 1,674 were injured, the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission (HRMMU) in Ukraine said.
The U.N. has documented a total of 13,883 civilian deaths, including 726 children, since the war began. Another 35,548 civilians have been injured, including 2,234 children.
“Whether you are in a hospital or a prison, at home or at work, close to or far away from the frontline, if you are in Ukraine today, you are at risk of getting killed or injured by the war,” Danielle Bell, head of HRMMU said. “The risk is significantly higher than last year and it continues to rise.”
Russian foreign minister says ‘Ukraine has the right to exist’ with territory-related caveat
Tara Suter
Sun 24 August 2025
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview Sunday that Ukraine “has the right to exist” but added a caveat to that right related to territory.
“Mr. Foreign Minister, let me ask you about something that President Putin said in June. He said, quote, ‘I consider the Russian and Ukrainian people to be one nation. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours,’” NBC News’s Kristen Welker said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Does President Putin believe that Ukraine has a right to exist?”
“No, this is not — this is not true. Ukraine has the right to exist, provided it must let people go,” Lavrov responded.
“The people whom they call terrorists, who they call species and who — during a referendum — several referenda in Novorossiya, in Donbas, in Crimea, decided that they belong to the Russian culture and the government which came to power as a result of the coup was determined as a priority to exterminate everything Russian,” he added.
In 2022, referendums to become a part of Russia occurred in the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Russian state media stated at the time, according to NPR, that the regions seemed to largely back annexation in the votes.
The Trump administration has pushed for an end to the war in Ukraine in President Trump’s first few months back in office. The president recently met with both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin in a matter of days.
Vice President Vance also said in his own “Meet the Press” interview Sunday that security guarantees for Ukraine will not include American “boots on the ground.”
“The president’s been very clear. There are not going to be boots on the ground in Ukraine, but we are going to continue to play an active role in trying to ensure that the Ukrainians have the security guarantees and the confidence they need to stop the war on their end,” Vance said.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Russia's Lavrov outlines terms for Ukraine peace: big power security guarantee and no NATO
Reuters
Sun 24 August 2025
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview published on Sunday that a group of nations including United Nations Security Council members should be the guarantors of Ukraine's security.
Reuters reported last week that President Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters.
Lavrov told NBC News' "Meet the Press" that Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump had discussed the issue of a security guarantee for Ukraine and that Putin had raised the issue of the failed Istanbul discussions of 2022.
At those discussions, Russia and Ukraine discussed Ukraine's permanent neutrality in return for security guarantees from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, and other countries, according to a copy of a draft agreement seen by Reuters in 2022.
Lavrov told NBC that a group including Security Council members should guarantee Ukraine's security. The group could also include Germany and Turkey and other countries, Lavrov said.
"And the guarantors would be guaranteeing the security of Ukraine, which must be neutral, which must be non-aligned with any military bloc and which must be non-nuclear," Lavrov said, according to a transcript of the interview released by the foreign ministry.
Lavrov also made it clear that NATO membership for Ukraine was unacceptable for Russia, that Russia wanted protection for Russian speakers in Ukraine and that there was a territorial discussion to be had with Ukraine.
Tara Suter
Sun 24 August 2025
THE HILL
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview Sunday that Ukraine “has the right to exist” but added a caveat to that right related to territory.
“Mr. Foreign Minister, let me ask you about something that President Putin said in June. He said, quote, ‘I consider the Russian and Ukrainian people to be one nation. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours,’” NBC News’s Kristen Welker said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Does President Putin believe that Ukraine has a right to exist?”
“No, this is not — this is not true. Ukraine has the right to exist, provided it must let people go,” Lavrov responded.
“The people whom they call terrorists, who they call species and who — during a referendum — several referenda in Novorossiya, in Donbas, in Crimea, decided that they belong to the Russian culture and the government which came to power as a result of the coup was determined as a priority to exterminate everything Russian,” he added.
In 2022, referendums to become a part of Russia occurred in the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Russian state media stated at the time, according to NPR, that the regions seemed to largely back annexation in the votes.
The Trump administration has pushed for an end to the war in Ukraine in President Trump’s first few months back in office. The president recently met with both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin in a matter of days.
Vice President Vance also said in his own “Meet the Press” interview Sunday that security guarantees for Ukraine will not include American “boots on the ground.”
“The president’s been very clear. There are not going to be boots on the ground in Ukraine, but we are going to continue to play an active role in trying to ensure that the Ukrainians have the security guarantees and the confidence they need to stop the war on their end,” Vance said.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Russia's Lavrov outlines terms for Ukraine peace: big power security guarantee and no NATO
Reuters
Sun 24 August 2025
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview published on Sunday that a group of nations including United Nations Security Council members should be the guarantors of Ukraine's security.
Reuters reported last week that President Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters.
Lavrov told NBC News' "Meet the Press" that Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump had discussed the issue of a security guarantee for Ukraine and that Putin had raised the issue of the failed Istanbul discussions of 2022.
At those discussions, Russia and Ukraine discussed Ukraine's permanent neutrality in return for security guarantees from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, and other countries, according to a copy of a draft agreement seen by Reuters in 2022.
Lavrov told NBC that a group including Security Council members should guarantee Ukraine's security. The group could also include Germany and Turkey and other countries, Lavrov said.
"And the guarantors would be guaranteeing the security of Ukraine, which must be neutral, which must be non-aligned with any military bloc and which must be non-nuclear," Lavrov said, according to a transcript of the interview released by the foreign ministry.
Lavrov also made it clear that NATO membership for Ukraine was unacceptable for Russia, that Russia wanted protection for Russian speakers in Ukraine and that there was a territorial discussion to be had with Ukraine.
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