Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov praised U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday for his remarks attributing the war in Ukraine to previous U.S. support for Ukraine's NATO aspirations. Lavrov highlighted Trump as the first Western leader to publicly make such statements, crediting him for acknowledging the root causes of the Ukrainian situation. Lavrov emphasized Trump's understanding of Russia's perspective, contrasting it with previous Western stances on NATO and Ukraine.
During discussions in Riyadh with the United States on Tuesday, NATO abandoned its 2008 commitment to eventual Ukrainian membership and rejected the notion of NATO forces serving as peacekeepers in a potential ceasefire agreement.