However eager for a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine, Russia won’t accept any Western mediation during its talks with Kyiv since it believes that its Western partners can’t be trusted anymore, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said during a video conference on Monday with the Serbian media.
Noting that there are many examples when the West has shattered achievements of diplomacy, he stressed that his Western counterparts can’t be trusted anymore, Lavrov opined, especially after the shuttle diplomacy they’ve done in February 2014 in Ukraine and in February 2015 in Minsk.
Lavrov explained that they’ve agreed to resume the talks in Istanbul after the Turkish government, having good ties with both Russia and Ukraine, has put a great effort into getting them around the negotiating table.
Russia’s stand is somewhat understandable considering the fact that both the EU and the US support Kyiv in the conflict.
However, having supplied Kyiv with military drones and having underscored that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine contravenes international law, Turkey is also by no means neutral, but Ankara has nevertheless played the role of mediator.
Moscow is not the only one suspecting the West’s motives with many in the Mideast seeing flagrant hypocrisy in Western support of Ukraine.
Within days of the Russian invasion, the US, the EU, and other Western countries have invoked in the blink of an eye the international law, imposed crippling sanctions, and began welcoming refugees with open arms, supporting at the same time – morally and with arms shipments- Ukraine’s armed resistance.
That elicited outraged reactions across the Middle East, with many blasting the glaring double standard in the West’s response to international conflicts.
Speaking at a security forum in Turkey earlier this month, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki has called that behavior amazing hypocrisy after they saw how every means that the West – especially the US- told them could not be activated for over seven decades is now deployed in less than a week.
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