Russia ready to establish dialogue channel with U.S. on Ukraine - Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that Moscow is ready to establish a separate dialogue channel with the United States on Ukraine.

According to an Ukrinform correspondent, Lavrov said this in his remarks before meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Stockholm on December 2.

"We are interested in making steps to settle the Ukrainian crisis, and our American colleagues have said on numerous occasions that they would like to help without destroying the Normandy format by restoring a separate dialogue channel that existed under the previous administration. And we are ready for that," Lavrov said.

He said that he wanted to hear Blinken's explanations about the remarks he delivered at the OSCE plenary session by stating "what provisions of the Minsk agreements Russia has to fulfill."

"I'm looking forward to hear the explanations so that I would understand what approaches the United States will stick to while considering the Ukrainian issue," Lavrov said.

In addition, Lavrov said that NATO expanding further east will infringe upon the fundamental interests of Russia's security.

"Everyone is talking about the escalation of tensions in Europe on the border between Russia and Ukraine. We, as President Putin stated, do not want any conflicts, but if our NATO partners have stated that no one has a right to dictate to a country that would like to join NATO whether it can do or not, we can say that every country is able to define its own interests to guarantee their security. And we can refer to the principle of indivisible security envisaged in the EU and NATO documents, which is that no one can guarantee its own security at the expense of the security of others. NATO's expanding further east advance to the East will obviously infringe upon the fundamental interests of our security," he said.

op