UK foreign secretary questions Russia's 'appetite' for peace and challenges Lavrov at tense G20 meet

[February 21, 2025]  By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME, MICHELLE GUMEDE and GERALD IMRAY

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he saw no appetite for peace from Russia in Ukraine after listening to a speech by Russia's top diplomat at a tense Group of 20 meeting in South Africa on Thursday.

Lammy was speaking to reporters after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addressed other senior diplomats in a closed-door session at the G20 foreign ministers meeting in Johannesburg.

"I have to say when I listened to what the Russians and what Lavrov have just said in the chamber this afternoon, I don’t see an appetite to really get to that peace,” Lammy said.

In a transcript of his speech released by the Russian Foreign Ministry, Lavrov had repeated his long-standing criticism of the West and accused it of interfering in “the internal affairs” of other countries.

Lammy said Lavrov left his seat in the meeting room when it was Lammy’s turn to speak.

The two-day G20 gathering on Thursday and Friday comes days after landmark bilateral talks between the United States and Russia over ending the war in Ukraine. Those talks sidelined Washington’s European allies and Ukraine, who weren’t involved.

U.S. President Donald Trump has further upended the West’s position by criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and falsely blaming Ukraine for the full-scale invasion by Russia. The war’s third anniversary is next week.

“At the moment, we’ve had talks effectively about talks," Lammy said. “We’ve not got anywhere near a negotiated settlement."

In his own speech, which was released by the U.K. Foreign Office, Lammy criticized Russia for what he called “Tsarist imperialism.”

“Mature countries learn from their colonial failures and their wars, and Europeans have had much to learn over the generations and the centuries,” Lammy said. “But I’m afraid to say that Russia has learned nothing.”

“I was hoping to hear some sympathy for the innocent victims of the aggression. I was hoping to hear some readiness to seek a durable peace. What I heard was the logic of imperialism dressed up as a realpolitik," he added. "I say to you all, we should not be surprised, but neither should we be fooled.”

Lammy referred to Lavrov's speech as “the Russian gentleman’s tired fabrications.”

Tensions at the meeting were underlined when a photo opportunity for the foreign ministers to pose together for pictures was canceled with no reason given.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy arrives for the opening session of the G20 foreign ministers meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

The United Kingdom, France, Germany and the European Union have all pledged continued support for Ukraine and were expected to reinforce that position at the G20 meeting.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who led talks with Lavrov in Saudi Arabia this week, was a high-profile absentee from the meeting. Rubio boycotted amid U.S. tensions with host South Africa over some of its policies, which the Trump administration has labeled anti-American. The U.S. was represented by Dana Brown, its acting ambassador to South Africa.

The G20 is made up of 19 of the world's major economies, the European Union and the African Union. Others attending the meeting in South Africa included EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, who repeated France's condemnation of Russia in an op-ed published by several media outlets.

After holding bilateral talks with Wang on Thursday, Lavrov said Russia's relations with China "have become and remain an increasingly significant factor in stabilizing the international situation and preventing it from sliding into total confrontation,” according to a statement from the ministry.

The G20 is supposed to bring developed and developing countries together to foster global cooperation. But the grouping often struggles to reach any meaningful consensus because of the disparate interests of the U.S., Europe, Russia and China. Cooperation was further undermined by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

South Africa holds the G20's rotating presidency this year and in a speech opening the meeting, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that it was an opportunity for the G20 “to engage in serious dialogue” against a backdrop of geopolitical tensions and war, climate change, pandemics and energy and food insecurity.

"There is a lack of consensus among major powers, including in the G20, on how to respond to these issues,” Ramaphosa said.

Rubio's decision to boycott and his pledge to also skip the main G20 summit in South Africa in November threatens to further undermine the G20's effectiveness.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also said that he won't attend a G20 finance ministers meeting in South Africa next week because of commitments in Washington. Many saw that as another indication of Trump's indifference to international collaboration in favor of his “America First” policy.

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Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.

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