West Using Ruses to Trick Developing Nations into Backing its Position on Ukraine — Lavrov

"There is no need even to explain that this is simple fraud and deception, which is all about dragging normal countries into a totally unrealistic, Russophobic, ultimatum-based contrivance," the Russian foreign minister stressed

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Sergey Karpukhin/TASS

© Sergey Karpukhin/TASS

MOSCOW, September 15. /TASS/. The West is resorting to outright deception in its efforts to entice the countries of the global majority to back Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s so-called "peace formula," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

"Lately, they [the Western countries] have started trying to drag the countries of the global majority toward supporting this formula," the top Russian diplomat said at a roundtable discussion on a potential settlement to the Ukrainian crisis. "Their [arrogant] calculation is that are dealing with totally naive people, who are inexperienced not only in diplomacy, but just in normal interactions between adults."

"There is no need even to explain that this is simple fraud and deception, which is all about dragging normal countries into a totally unrealistic, Russophobic, ultimatum-based contrivance, and then to hide among the names of these normal countries, proclaiming, 'You know, support for [Kiev’s 'peace formula'] is growing among the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America,'" the Russian foreign minister said.

According to Lavrov, the West keeps claiming that this so-called "peace formula" is the only path to negotiations.

"I am not surprised at all, because these are exactly the same crooked methods that the West resorts to not only in regard to Ukraine, but many other areas of global politics as well," Russia’s top diplomat added.

Ukrainian President Zelensky said speaking to the G20 summit last November that Kiev had a "plan to achieve peace" consisting of ten points. Among them are nuclear, food and energy security, and an "all-for-all" exchange of "detainees," as well as the withdrawal of Russian troops and restoration of Ukraine's territorial integrity.

Russian Foreign Ministry Lavrov later slammed this plan a "nonsensical initiative" that "piles everything on top of everything else."