LOS ANGELES (OC).–Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, 75, stunned NBC News Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” when he said the Ukraine has a right to exist as Ukraine, not a satellite of the Russian state. Since the war started Feb. 24, 2025, Ukraine’s 47-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky, and many elected officials in the U.S. and EU, said that Putin was trying to commit genocide in Ukraine,to wipe out the Ukrainian culture. ‘Mr. Foreign Minister, let me ask you about something that President Putin said in June. He said, quote, ‘I consider the Russia and Ukrainian people to be one nation. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours,’” Welker told Lavrov. “No, that is not—this is not true. Ukraine has a right to exist, provided it must let people go,” Lavrov said, referring to Russian speaking groups in Donbas and elsewhere that vote to stay connected to the Russian Federation.
Zelensky has spent the last three-and-a-half years battling the Kremlin, watching Ukraine destroyed, with thousands of civilians and soldiers killed or maimed. He told the EU that the war in Ukraine defended European democracy, accusing Putin of having his eyes on other European countries. Zelensky has no facts to back up his claims but caters to the mood in some former Soviet satellites like the Baltic states and Poland that worry about a Russia takeover. Putin has told every journalist consistently, including former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, that he has not intent of going to war with NATO. Zelensky provoked Putin into invading accepting copious amounts of cash-and-arms from the U.S. and EU. He’s said repeatedly that the arms buildup in Ukraine threatens Russian national security. Former President Joe Biden kept sending Ukraine more weapons.
When Putin invaded Ukraine, he said it was a “special military operation” designed to demilitarize Ukraine. But the weapons kept flowing into Ukraine from the U.S. and EU. Zelensky wouldn’t stop asking NATO for membership knowing it was a red flag for Putin. Zelensky was told he was not eligible for NATO membership because he was at war with Russia, but, more importantly, because his country didn’t meet the criteria for a democracy. So, how does Zelensky reconcile telling the EU that he’s defending European democracy, knowing that the job of NATO? Zelensky has said a lot of things over the last three-and-a-half years but none in more preposterous that he’s defending European democracy. He can barely defend his own country, watching the daily destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure and its civilian population centers.
Zelensky claims he wants peace or so he tells the U.S. and EU. But when Trump offered to negotiate a fair peace settlement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Zelensky ran to the EU claiming Trump favored Putin in any negotiations. Lavrov wants to set the record straight who’s working for peace, when Zelensky makes more excuses why he can’t trade land-for-peace to end the bloody conflict. “The people whom they call terrorists, who they call species and who—during a referendum—several referenda in Novoressiya, in Donabas, in Crimea, decided that they belong to the Russian culture and the government which came to power as a result of the coup was determined as a priority to exterminate everything Russian,” Lavrov said. Lavrov wants make the point that large groups of people living in Ukraine, Russian speaking enclaves, want no part of the Kiev government.
For whatever reason, the U.S. press continuing to back the Ukraine War, often mocking Trump for seeking a political settlement. They throw their support behind Zelensky, without realizing that Zelensky’s policy has destroyed much of the country and led to a loss of sovereign territory. Zelensky thought he was clever in August of 2024, invading the Kursk border region of Russia, thinking two could play the invasion game. Well, last lasted nearly a year before Putin got enough military backup to chase Ukraine out of Russia. Now there’s no longer any Ukrainian troops across the Russian border. Zelensky keeps telling his people nightly that he’s winning the war with the Kremlin, when, in fact, he’s losing sovereign territory ever day. Zelensky fears a political settlement will expose to the Ukraine people his failed policy, leading to a coup d’etat.
Lavrov’s clear statement about Ukraine’s right to exist disputes the reports out of Kiev that Putin wants to seize all of Ukraine, then move on to other EU countries. So much propaganda has been part of the Ukraine War, starting in 2022 when former President Joe Biden and his former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the aim of Ukraine War was to degrade the Russian military to the point it could no longer wage war. Once Biden made that statement, Putin saw the war as an existential threat to the Kremlin. Since Trump came to office, he’s worked hard to restore normal diplomatic relations with Russia, doing his best to negotiate a fair settlement for both parties. Trump said in whatever post-war security scenario, the U.S. would not put any U.S. boots on the ground in Ukraine, saying he would provide air support as a backdrop to assure a stable peace.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
