Russian minister casts prospective Ukraine peace talks as Western plot to win hesitant Global South

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that prospective negotiations to end the fighting in Ukraine could be successful only if they take Moscow’s interests in the account. Lavrov on Tuesday dismissed a planned round of peace talks in Switzerland as a Western ruse to rally broader international support for Kyiv. He charged that Ukraine’s Western allies are currently involved in a massive diplomatic blitz to persuade as many countries of the Global South as possible to join a meeting in Switzerland for discussions of a potential peace plan. He reaffirmed that any talks would be a “useless waste of time” if Moscow’s interests were not considered.