Blinken meets with Russian Foreign Minister, demands end to ‘war of aggression’

Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken met with his Russian counterpart on Thursday. It was the first private face-to-face meeting between an administration cabinet member and a senior Kremlin official since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Mr. Blinken said he used the meeting to ask Russia to end its war in Ukraine.

The meeting, with Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov of Russia on the other side, was arranged on the sidelines of the international conference in New Delhi, a sign that the Biden administration sees a need to re-establish face-to-face diplomatic contact with Moscow so that the two governments can discuss the year-long war and other issues.

Blinken said at a news conference Thursday night that in addition to calling on Russia to stop its aggressive war in Ukraine, he told Lavrov that Russia should return to the New START treaty, which it withdrew from last month, and abide by its terms. He again urged Moscow to release Paul Whelan, a U.S. citizen who the State Department says was wrongfully convicted of espionage.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei V. Lavrov, leaves a news conference on the sidelines of a meeting of the Group of 20 nations in New Delhi on Thursday. He had an unscheduled meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Ken Blinken.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei V. Lavrov, leaves a news conference on the sidelines of a meeting of the Group of 20 nations in New Delhi on Thursday. He had an unscheduled meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Ken Blinken.

The meeting between Mr. Blinken and Mr. Lavrov took place on the sidelines of the gathering of top diplomats from the Group of 20, representing the world’s largest economies, and lasted less than 10 minutes. In the morning, Blinken told a panel meeting attended by Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang that countries must continue to call on Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine for the sake of international peace and economic stability.

The encounter came at a critical moment in Europe’s largest and most destructive conflict since World War II. Both sides are mobilizing more troops and weapons for the planned spring offensive, hoping for a decisive breakthrough. Russian forces are advancing on the besieged Ukrainian city of Bakhmut at a heavy loss of life, but there has been little movement on the battlefield recently.

The G-20 instead issued a lower-level statement reflecting the fact that 18 of the 20 nations condemned the invasion, suggesting that even some officially neutral countries — India, Indonesia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia — were willing to distance themselves from Russia in some cases. At a meeting in Bali in November, President Biden and other leaders of the Group of 20 agreed to a document with similarly critical language.

Russian officials said Blinken sought the meeting with Lavrov, but before flying to India from Uzbekistan a day earlier, Blinken told reporters he had no plans to meet either Lavrov or Qin on the sidelines of the meeting. Blinken did not meet with his Chinese counterpart on Thursday.

The meeting between Mr. Lavrov and Mr. Blinken did not indicate any movement toward negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said no negotiations had taken place between the two men, state news agency Interfax reported.

At a news conference Wednesday in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, Mr. Blinken said the Biden administration had “not seen any evidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin was serious about starting substantive talks.

In fact, he said Thursday, Mr. Putin’s destruction of Ukraine was intensifying. Blinken reiterated that only Putin could meet the conditions for peace, namely withdrawing troops from all of Ukraine.

Blinken arrives at a news conference at the Group of 20 meeting Thursday after meeting with Lavrov. There was no indication that Mr. Lavrov responded to Mr. Blinken’s demands.

Blinken arrives at a news conference at the Group of 20 meeting Thursday after meeting with Lavrov. There was no indication that Mr. Lavrov responded to Mr. Blinken’s demands.

President Biden and his aides say their immediate goal is to continue providing military aid to Ukraine to push back Russia and reclaim Ukrainian territory, and that any peace talks being pushed by China and some other countries would be a distraction to help Mr. Putin try to consolidate his gains and continue his offensive in Ukraine. A senior State Department official said Blinken told Lavrov that the United States was committed to defending Ukraine “no matter how long this war takes.”

There was no indication that Mr. Lavrov responded to Mr. Blinken’s demands. But at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, a Russian official reiterated Moscow’s reasons for suspending its participation in the New START treaty. Russian envoy Sergei Ryabkov accused the United States and its European Allies of trying to defeat Russia strategically and helping Ukraine attack Russian strategic sites identified by the treaty.