The United States and Russia said on Feb 18 they had agreed to press ahead with efforts to end the war in Ukraine after holding talks in Riyadh at which Kyiv was not represented. Russia demanded Ukraine be excluded from NATO membership.
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00:00We see that Lavrov is here, and Yuri Ushakov, the assistant president, is here as well.
00:14The conversation was, I think, very useful.
00:19We not only listened, but also heard each other.
00:24I have reason to believe that the American side understood our position better,
00:30which we, based on the many speeches of President Putin,
00:35gave in detail, on specific examples, once again.
00:39We explained to our today's interlocutors that we noted very well
00:45that President Trump, in several of his speeches,
00:49was the first among the Western leaders to say that
00:53the inclusion of Ukraine in NATO is one of the main reasons for what is happening,
00:58that this is one of the biggest mistakes of Biden and his administration,
01:03and that if Trump were president, he would not allow this.
01:07We explained to our today's colleagues that President Putin
01:14emphasized that NATO is a direct threat to the interests of the Russian Federation,
01:25a direct threat to our sovereignty.
01:28That is why we explained today that the emergence of the armed forces
01:35from the same NATO countries, but under a foreign flag,
01:41under the flag of the European Union, or under national flags,
01:45does not change anything in this regard.
01:47This, of course, is unacceptable to us.
02:05It was very, very solid.
02:06But the important thing is that we've started that process.
02:09And what the president did not find acceptable was an endless war in Europe
02:15that was literally turning into, has turned into, a meat grinder of people on both sides.
02:23So, if you just think about, just in a few months,
02:26President Trump has shifted the entire global conversation from,
02:31not if the war is going to end, but just how it's going to end.
03:01I do not believe that Putin wants this war, but if there is a will,
03:05then the exchange of prisoners is definitely going to happen, above all.