Lavrov’s comments come almost a year after US President Donald Trump hosted Putin at a summit in Alaska that raised expectations of progress on a settlement to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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President Vladimir Putin is ready to meet US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Russia to discuss Ukraine, though it matters what proposals they bring, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.“We are not refusing to talk to them,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russian state television broadcast Friday. “If they come, they know that President Putin is ready to receive them once again. The question is what they will come with.”His comments come almost a year after US President Donald Trump hosted Putin at a summit in Alaska that raised expectations of progress on a settlement to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Lavrov said Witkoff brought proposals from Trump to Moscow that Putin had accepted ahead of the talks in Anchorage.The summit ended in failure with no agreement even on a ceasefire to allow for negotiations. Russia later repeatedly insisted that what it called the “spirit of Anchorage” should be honored and that the US should press Ukraine to accept the terms of the proposals discussed in Alaska. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on June 25, however, that “there was a proposal in Alaska, but there was no agreement in Alaska” on a deal to end the war. “If there had been an agreement, we would have had an end to the war,” he said.Putin wants Ukraine to surrender the remainder of its eastern Donetsk region to Russian forces that have failed to capture the territory in fighting since 2014. Ukraine rejects that demand and has proposed halting the war on the existing front lines to allow for talks on a peace agreement.Lavrov said Russia won’t accept a truce on those terms.“More and more voices from across our common space are calling for an immediate halt. That won’t work,” he said. “We should stop only when there is a long-term, reliable and sustainable settlement.”Lavrov also said that Moscow has sent questions to the US about Washington’s provision of intelligence to Kyiv and about its alleged deeper involvement in Ukrainian strikes inside Russia. Published on August 14, 2026