The Root causes of the Ukrainian war from the Russian Foreign Minister's perspective

In an interview with CBS, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized that Russia has not received an offer for joint management of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant from the United States and Ukraine.

He stated that the Europeans, Zelensky, and NATO want to seize the peace initiative of US President Donald Trump for their benefit, but Trump does not want this.

Lavrov accused Europe and NATO of calling for a ceasefire only to continue to send weapons to Ukraine. Of course, he emphasized that Trump does not have such an opinion.

In another part of his speech, he named two root causes of the Ukrainian conflict and said: One of the causes is the expansion of NATO and the creation of direct military threats near Russia. The other cause is the blatant violation of the human rights of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine.

“Everything Russian — media, education, culture, everything — was banned by law in Ukraine,” Lavrov said in another part of his speech.

He also added that Russia never speaks publicly about what is discussed in the negotiations. “We are really polite people, and, unlike some others, we never discuss in public what is being discussed in negotiations. Otherwise, negotiations are not serious. To ask for somebody’s opinion regarding the substance, go to Zelenskyy. He is happy to talk to anybody through media, even to President Trump.”

When pressed further, Lavrov remarked: “We are serious people and we consider serious proposals. We make serious proposals, and this is a process which is not supposed to be public until the end of it.”

Russia is trying to ban nuclear weapons in space, Lavrov said. According to Lavrov, Moscow has supported a UN resolution to ban the deployment of nuclear weapons in space legally.

Lavrov also told CBS that “the United States, at least during the Biden administration, was categorically against this Russian initiative.” He also called it an illusion that Ukraine needed confidence-building.

Lavrov also said that Russia had taken several "confidence-building" measures, including a 30-day moratorium on attacks on energy infrastructure, which Ukraine violated.