Russia's Lavrov contradicts Rubio, calls for clarity on US mediation role

MOSCOW, June 26 - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on Friday for "clarification" of the U.S. role in trying to end the war in Ukraine.

In written answers to media questions, Lavrov escalated an argument with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio about whether presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump had reached an understanding on the outlines of a peace deal when they met in Alaska last year.

Russia says there was indeed such an understanding, which it has often referred to as "the spirit of Anchorage".

But Rubio, speaking to reporters on Thursday, denied that any agreement was reached.

"There was a proposal in Alaska, but there was no agreement in Alaska. If there had been an agreement, we would have had an end of the war," Rubio said.

Lavrov, in response, laid out the most detailed version yet of what took place at the summit last August.

He said Putin went through a series of U.S. proposals that Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff had brought to Moscow days earlier, listing them point by point and checking with Witkoff – who was present at the summit along with Trump and Rubio — that he, Putin, had noted them correctly.

Lavrov, who was also at the meeting, said Witkoff had answered each time in the affirmative.

"Therefore, when my colleague M. Rubio says that there were only proposals in Alaska but no agreement, it raises a question regarding what we actually mean by 'agreement'," Lavrov said.

"If one side - in this case, the U.S. - put on the table its proposals for a settlement and a way to approach this crisis, and the other side expressed its consent to those proposals, then claiming there was no agreement seems rather inelegant."

He added that the "entire situation" around the U.S. role needed to be clarified.

Critical comments by Lavrov and other Russian officials this week point to a shift in Moscow's appraisal of Washington's efforts to end the Ukraine war, which have stalled since the U.S. and Israel launched a war against Iran in February.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Trump and other Western leaders last week that Kyiv was turning the tide of the war with its strikes deep inside Russian territory, including on oil refineries and industrial plants.

Russia disputes that and says it will achieve victory on the battlefield if diplomatic efforts fail to produce a peace settlement. Its forces control around a fifth of Ukraine after more than four years of war.

The Kremlin repeated on Friday that it valued Trump's mediation efforts and hoped they would resume.

But spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked if Moscow considered the U.S. a neutral mediator, said there was no such thing as absolute neutrality because the U.S. was still selling weapons and providing technological support to Ukraine. REUTERS