Russian Foreign Minister Proves Elusive In Discussing Potential Peace Deal

"You're not listening to me," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at one point in a sometimes circular and often slippery interview that aired Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Speaking to host Margaret Brennan, Lavrov both carefully parsed his words and hers in an interview meant to elucidate and clarify Russian positions on the potential for ending the ongoing Russian-Ukraine war, among other topics. An excerpt from the interview, which was released Thursday, quoted Lavrov as saying: “The president of the United States believes, and I think rightly so, that we are moving in the right direction.”

But the full interview suggested everything was nowhere near that simple on almost any point, unless, of course, maybe it was.

Lavrov declined to outline the contours of the current deal outlined by President Donald Trump for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying, "We are really polite people, and, unlike some others, we never discuss in public what is being discussed in negotiations. Otherwise, negotiations are not serious. To ask for somebody's opinion regarding the substance, go to Zelenskyy. He is happy to talk to anybody through media, even to President Trump."

When pressed further, Lavrov added: "We are serious people and we consider serious proposals. We make serious proposals, and this is a process which is not supposed to be public until the end of it."

At the same time, he denied that a deal was imminent or that it was not imminent: "Now I understand, by the way, why you wanted to get the brief answers to your questions. You want some slogans to be," before Brennan interrupted to seek clarification based on what Trump had said about the Russian position.

In the interview, Brennan also pushed back on Lavrov's statement that Ukraine had banned people from speaking the Russian language. "It is not illegal, Minister Lavrov, to speak Russian. The President of Ukraine speaks Russian," she said to him. She also asked about Russia's response to Trump's Truth Social post saying “Vladimir, STOP!” after a Russian attack on Kyiv.

"You're not listening to me," Lavrov said. "We will continue to target the sites used by the military of Ukraine, by some mercenaries from foreign countries and by instructors whom the Europeans officially sent to help target Russian civilian sites."

Brennan tried to gauge how Russia was responding to the impact of American sanctions (and the potential threat of more sanctions), quoting from a recent interview Lavrov gave on the subject in which he expressed concern that the U.S. would lift sanctions "all of a sudden" and then flood Russian markets.

"Why do you ask me? You just quoted my statement," Lavrov responded, "and this statement is clear for me and clear to all those who read it. If you have questions to the American side, how they treat the situation. It is not, it is not the right address to raise it with me."

Brennan replied: "So you want to keep sanctions in place. Is that really the Russian position?"

Lavrov said: "I don't want to re-explain what I explained, I think, in quite, in quite clear manner." After Brennan said, "I quoted," Lavrov jumped in with "very close to the real content. Yeah. It was a bit longer than normally you prefer. I know."

Brennan brought up a potential time frame for a deal, noting that Trump was coming up on 100 days in office, and stating that he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had suggested the window for an agreement was closing.

"We understand, we understand the impatience," Lavrov said in response, "because in American culture, you create expectations, and you ignite tension around those expectations. This does not help to do realpolitik. But in our case, as I said, we are always ready for dialogue, ready for negotiations, and we would not, you know, begin by banking on a failure. This would be a characteristic of bad deal-makers, inexperienced deal-makers."

He did, however, reference Trump's most famous book ("The Art of the Deal," though he called it "the art to make a deal") in saying why he was being tight-lipped on particulars, suggesting one doesn't show one's cards too early, before taking another dig at Brennan.

"You know, I understand that journalists have to speculate," Lavrov said.

One subject that Lavrov was definitive on was the future of Crimea, the territory that Russia took from Ukraine in 2014. Lavrov insisted Crimea would remain part of Russia.

"This is a done deal," he said.

Trump, who repeatedly promised to end the war on his first day in office when he was campaigning last year, has been unable to unlock a formula to bring the fighting to an end. On Saturday, he suggested that perhaps Putin was just stringing him along.

"There was no reason for Putin," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday, "to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days. It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through 'Banking' or 'Secondary Sanctions?' Too many people are dying!!!"