Lavrov: US seeking to make conflict in Ukraine even more violent

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The US and NATO are attempting to defeat Russia on the battlefield in order to destroy the country, Russia's Foreign Minister said.

Sergei Lavrov made the remark late Monday, according to the ITAR-TASS news agency, adding that Ukraine is fully aware of Russia's demands and could simply meet them to end the war.

"Our proposals for the demilitarization and denazification of the territories controlled by the [Kiev] regime, [and] the elimination of threats to Russia's security emanating from there, including our new lands, are well-known to the enemy," Lavrov said, adding, "The point is simple: Fulfill them for your own good. Otherwise, the issue will be decided by the Russian army."

According to him, the main party that benefited from this conflict is the US, which has been seeking to make the most out of the war in Ukraine. 

"Washington has also been solving a key geopolitical goal of breaking the traditional bonds between Russia and Europe and making their European satellites even more dependent on them," Lavrov emphasized, further adding that the US is currently planning orders for its defense sector for years to come.

"The Kiev regime is being pumped up with the latest weapons, receiving samples that have yet to enter into service with Western armies, seemingly in order to see how they will perform in combat," he concluded.

Moscow said it started the war to protect the pro-Russian population in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Lugansk and Donetsk from Kiev's persecution, as well as to "de-Nazify" its neighbor.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently warned in an article that Moscow would continue the war until Kiev's "disgusting, almost fascist regime" was removed and the country was completely demilitarized.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Moscow was open to talks and blamed the lack of talks on Kiev and its Western backers.

Lavrov likewise affirmed in his remarks that when it comes to how long the conflict would last, "the ball is in the regime's court and Washington behind it."

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Last week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has stated that he is not optimistic about the possibility of "effective" peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in the near future. 

''I do believe that the military confrontation will go on,'' said Guterres at the UN Headquarters in New York. Adding that they will have to wait for serious peace negotiations, Guterres said "We have no illusions that true peace negotiations will be possible in the immediate future.''

The UN, according to its SG, said that it is concentrating its efforts on Russian ammonia exports through a pipeline to a Black Sea port in Ukraine and accelerating exchanging prisoners of war. 

Turkish media outlet Anadolu Agency asked Guterres whether he would support an Erdogan-proposed trilateral mechanism between Ankara, Moscow, and Damascus in efforts to resolve the war. In response, Guterres said that the UN was not consulted and it is "premature" to make any comments on the proposal.

The UN's main concern, for the time being, was Syria, particularly renewing its cross-border humanitarian aid mechanism. ''Now that we have made progress (on) indeed, and Turkey has played a positive role on that in increasing the cross-line support,'' he said.

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