Sergey Lavrov interview on Channel One program «Большая игра», Moscow, 8 September 2026

Без спекуляций о содержимом; публичная часть и Ушаков; претензии Елисейского дворца — на его совести.

Asked about Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner’s recent Moscow meeting with Putin, Lavrov refuses to join media speculation about what they brought to Moscow or took to Kyiv. He points to the televised opening exchange, Yury Ushakov’s public comments, and Russia’s diplomatic habit of sticking to what has been deliberately disclosed. French Élysée claims that direct talks with US participation will resume after State Duma elections he leaves “on the conscience” of a palace already known for unethical handling of confidential conversations.

Я не хочу уподобляться тем, кто сейчас вот начинает спекулировать о том, а вот что же они привезли в Москву, что же господин Виткофф и господин Кушнер потом отвезли в Киев.

I do not want to liken myself to those who now start speculating about what they brought to Moscow and what Messrs Witkoff and Kushner then took to Kyiv.

Я оставляю всё это на совести Елисейского дворца, тем более, что он уже прославился неоднократно … не вполне этичным поведением по отношению к содержанию телефонных и прочих разговоров.

I leave all that on the conscience of the Élysée Palace, especially as it has already repeatedly made a name for itself … with not entirely ethical behaviour regarding the content of telephone and other conversations.

НАТО для Украины закрыто; «реалии» — люди после переворота 2014-го и референдумы, не линия фронта как сделка о землях.

The substance of the talks, Lavrov says, rests on Trump’s early Oval Office line on Ukraine: do not even try to drag Ukraine into NATO — the issue was clear long before Putin and is closed — and recognition of “realities on the ground.” Those realities are not about seized territory as a bargaining line; they are about people branded non-humans and terrorists after the February 2014 coup, then shelled and bombed in violation of IHL, and about Poroshenko’s 2014 contrast between “real Ukrainian” children in clean schools and Donbass children “rotting in basements.” Europe’s call to restore 1991 borders would hand those people back to a Nazi regime or punish them for retaining Russian-world culture. Trump’s team, as at Alaska, treats referendum-expressed will in Crimea, the DPR/LPR, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson as the baseline — which Russia welcomes.

он, во-первых, сказал, чтобы даже забыли пытаться втягивать Украину в Североатлантический альянс. … Вопрос закрыт.

He said, first, that they should even forget trying to drag Ukraine into the North Atlantic Alliance. … The question is closed.

Речь не о территориях. Когда мы говорим о реалиях, мы говорим о людях, которых сразу после госпереворота февраля 2014 года называли нелюдями, существами, террористами.

It is not about territories. When we speak of realities, we speak of people who right after the February 2014 coup were called non-humans, creatures, terrorists.

Принципы США приняты Путиным без изменений; Европа «похоронила» Анкоридж в Эвиане.

Correcting a host mix-up with the Iran MOU, Lavrov says the Anchorage package was a US proposal Witkoff brought days earlier; Putin initially withheld consent in Moscow, then at Alaska accepted responsibility for a compromise and took the US principles unchanged. Rubio’s later claim that the US cannot mediate because it supports Ukraine surprised him given the presidents’ Anchorage press conference language of a “brilliant” huge step forward with essentially one issue left. European allies then rushed to Washington; at the G7 in Evian Macron boasted they had “buried Anchorage” and that America was “with us” again against Russia. Europe’s clear aim was to stop Americans from keeping their own proposal, which Putin had accepted intact.

Все эти принципы президент Путин принял без каких-либо изменений.

President Putin accepted all those principles without any changes.

на саммите Семёрки в Эвиане господин Макрон гордо сказал: «Мы похоронили Анкоридж. Америка теперь с нами».

At the G7 summit in Evian Mr Macron proudly said: "We have buried Anchorage. America is now with us.

Виткофф/Кушнер серьёзны, но казначейство продлевает санкции Байдена и добавляет меры против Лукойла и Роснефти.

Lavrov finds Witkoff and Kushner serious people who want to be peacemakers and personally reliable, yet they do not run the whole Russia–US brief; State and Treasury act on their own tracks. Biden-era sanctions are renewed without reservation, and the current administration has added measures against Lukoil and Rosneft while Treasury Secretary Bessent talks openly of tightening sanctions and bringing world energy markets under US control — hard to square with negotiation atmospherics. “America First” still shapes the relationship: Washington wants economic gains and admits Russia cannot be treated like some other countries, but Lavrov says he does not yet know what that yields.

уже есть свежие санкции и нынешней администрации против Лукойла, против Роснефти.

There are already fresh sanctions from the current administration as well against Lukoil and against Rosneft.

Американцы хотят извлекать экономические выгоды. … с Россией нельзя поступать так, как с некоторыми другими странами они готовы обходиться.

Americans want to extract economic benefits. … With Russia one cannot act as they are prepared to act with some other countries.

«Рояль в кустах»; полтысячелетия жизни за чужой счёт; колониализм и мировые войны.

After Kyiv, Witkoff and Kushner faced Zelensky then a “piano from the bushes” session with UK, French and German representatives — Europe seeking an ever more active hostile role. Anchorage was not the first time. Europe’s Ukrainian record, and its five-hundred-year planetary role of living off others through slavery, colonialism and exploitation, plus two world wars born of European politics and Napoleonic and Hitlerian coalitions against Russia, lead many to see Europe as a scourge of world history. Lavrov still recalls Catherine II’s decisive support for American colonists against British colonisers and WWII alliance value — Lend-Lease and northern convoys — alongside the Elbe brotherhood, while Anchorage for him was understanding, not a spirit to immortalise.

полтысячелетия европейцы жили за счёт других. Здесь и рабовладельчество, здесь и колониализм, и эксплуатация.

For half a millennium Europeans lived at others’ expense. Here slavery, here colonialism, and exploitation.

Европа многими рассматривается как исчадие ада мировой истории.

Europe is viewed by many as a spawn of hell in world history.

Гарантии ЕС 21 февраля растоптаны 22-го; Запад «проглотил» переворот.

Europe had many chances to play constructively yet now demands a seat at every table. Europeans and Washington fanned Maidan from December 2013; Victoria Nuland personally steered militants with “cookies.” France, Germany and Poland brokered the 21 February 2014 Yanukovych–opposition deal for early elections and a national-unity government — a Yanukovych concession — then overnight ignored their own guarantees as militants seized buildings and the West swallowed the coup. Obama asked Putin not to dissuade Yanukovych from signing; by 22 February Western statements already called him a “fugitive” while he was in Kharkiv at a party congress — “the ink had not dried.”

На утро произошёл госпереворот. Боевики, наплевав на все эти подписи Германии, Франции, Польши … захватили административные здания, и Запад это всё проглотил.

By morning there was a coup. Militants, spitting on all those signatures of Germany, France, Poland … seized administrative buildings, and the West swallowed it all.

Чернила не высохли на гарантированном европейцами документе.

The ink had not dried on the document guaranteed by the Europeans.

Минск как выигрыш времени на оружие; Джонсон — «не подписывайте».

A second chance came with the February 2015 Minsk deals co-signed by Merkel, Hollande, Putin and Poroshenko; years later all three Western/Ukrainian principals boasted they never meant to implement anything — they needed time to arm Ukraine. A third chance was April 2022 Istanbul, where Russian negotiators, like Putin later at Anchorage, accepted Ukrainian-proposed principles for a full peace treaty and initialled them; Putin has shown the texts on camera. Boris Johnson’s denial that he forbade signing is a lie — Servant of the People faction head David Arakhamia admitted Johnson told them not to sign anything. Europe never matched Trump-administration realism about facts, land and people; it keeps climbing a fence from which descent will be hard while demanding Russia’s “strategic defeat.”

Да не собирались мы ничего выполнять. Нам по зарез нужно было купить время, чтобы накачать Украину оружием.

We never intended to implement anything. We desperately needed to buy time to pump Ukraine full of weapons.

Он сказал им: «Не подписывайте ничего».

He told them: "Do not sign anything.

Нацизм, запрет языка ООН, УПЦ, «бусификация» — саморазоблачение Брюсселя.

EU talking heads say they will never recognise anything that violates Ukraine’s territorial integrity because Ukraine defends “European values” — which Lavrov calls a self-indictment: if so, those values mean open Nazism, racial and religious discrimination against the UN Charter’s human-rights standard. Ukraine alone has banned an official UN language; Russian schools and media are closed; the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church is outlawed by statute. Daily footage of territorial recruitment centres “busifying” civilians — ten men grabbing one youth for the front — is likewise sold as European values. After so many failed chances, Europe must work very hard before anything can again be entrusted to it.

под европейскими ценностями они понимают откровенные проявления настоящего нацизма, расовую дискриминацию, дискриминацию по национальному признаку, по религиозному признаку.

By European values they mean outright manifestations of real Nazism, racial discrimination, discrimination on national and religious grounds.

на Украине … единственная страна, которая запретила … официальный язык ООН.

In Ukraine … the only country that has banned … an official UN language.

Силы «стабилизации» = законная цель; сохранение киевского режима для русского народа неприемлемо.

Some Europeans (Finnish president, Italian PM) now urge an urgent ceasefire — which Lavrov reads as buying time, as Zelensky openly seeks more Patriots and air defence. Many say freeze without recognising Russian-controlled areas; others want immediate NATO-Article-5-comparable guarantees and “stabilisation forces” on remaining Kyiv-held land. Russia has answered: any personnel in uniform and any military objects are legitimate targets; a NATO membership clone without legal paperwork is impossible. Both the 1991-borders maximalists and the freeze-and-hint-recognition camp want to keep today’s Kyiv regime — Nazism, aggressive Russophobia, language and religion bans — consolidated after the military phase. Europe has walked back talk of elections; Americans show more realism. Lavrov does not see how the Russian people could accept such an outcome.

любые люди в военной форме, любые объекты военные, для нас это законная цель.

Any people in military uniform, any military objects, are for us a legitimate target.

Европа хочет сохранить откровенно русофобский, агрессивный неонацистский режим. … Я не вижу, как российский народ может принять такую развязку.

Europe wants to preserve an openly Russophobic, aggressive neo-Nazi regime. … I do not see how the Russian people can accept such an outcome.

Нейтралитет, безъядерность, внеблоковость 1990 года утрачены; признанная Украина «не существует более».

Asked how Russians can be sure Western Ukraine will not call NATO back in twenty-five years, Lavrov recounts Soviet-era construction of modern Ukraine: western lands with long nationalist traditions were attached to historically Russian southeast to dilute radicalism inside the Ukrainian SSR — an artificial formation that existed for only decades within a union that secured peoples’ rights. After independence, civilisational contradictions between “zapadentsy” and southeast Russians were fed by Europe; the 2004 Orange scenario forced an unconstitutional third round and an either/or with Russia or the West. The Ukraine Russia recognised on the 1990 declaration’s non-nuclear, neutral, non-bloc pledges no longer exists: Zelensky regretted giving up nuclear weapons; EU membership is treated as a military bloc like NATO; all three founding pillars that justified recognition are gone.

Украина, которую мы признавали как легитимное явление в мировой политике, не существует более. Это факт.

The Ukraine we recognised as a legitimate phenomenon in world politics no longer exists. That is a fact.

Сейчас все три этих клятвы … просто игнорируются.

Now all three of those oaths … are simply ignored.

5% ВВП НАТО; предупреждение Путина о короткой иной войне при подготовке нападения на Россию.

Europe talks out of both sides of its mouth: Russia will not escalate or strike back, yet it is racing toward a 2029–30 war scare and multi-trillion rearmament regardless of any Ukraine peace. Lavrov sees militarist interests redistributing budgets — NATO’s 5% GDP push, demands for fresh tens of billions for Ukraine — while Merz admits living standards worsen “for European values.” AfD’s Saxony win is smeared as Nazi revival though the party seeks normal dialogue. Arctic drills with a Russia-war scenario unsettle Moscow. Claims that a “losing” Russia is about to attack Europe are unserious; Putin has repeated Russia will attack no one. But if the war talk means preparing an attack on Russia, Lavrov cites the president: the war will be entirely different and very short — words worth remembering. He also does not rule out Sarajevo- or Reichstag-style provocations, citing the Leipzig drone hysteria without proof and unanswered questions on Bucha.

Мы ни на кого нападать не собираемся. Это глупость, идиотизм.

We are not going to attack anyone. That is stupidity, idiocy.

если вот эти разговоры означают подготовку вашего нападения, то, заверяю вас, война будет совершенно другой и очень короткой.

If these talks mean preparation of your attack, then, I assure you, the war will be entirely different and very short.

После обмана 2022-го переговоры без паузы СВО; Виткофф/Кушнер решают проблему, Европа — ультиматумы.

On whether Russia can keep absorbing Western-guided strikes on its territory while hitting only Ukraine, Lavrov says combat and diplomacy can and should run together. After the April 2022 initialling and Macron’s “gesture of goodwill” troop-pause request that proved a deception, Putin ruled that Russia stays open to talks but will not pause military tasks during negotiations. Short Easter, Victory Day and recent US-requested three-day pauses (so envoys could visit Kyiv) did not stop Russia’s harsher answers to terror strikes on deep civilian targets — one reason the West now urgently wants a ceasefire. Russia will not refuse talks offered by people who address the problem rather than issue impossible ultimatums: Witkoff and Kushner do the former; Europe does the latter.

Мы всегда отныне и впредь … открыты к переговорам, но на период переговоров мы не будем прекращать решение задач военными методами.

From now on we are always … open to negotiations, but for the period of negotiations we will not stop solving tasks by military methods.

американские переговорщики и Виткофф и Кушнер, они занимаются проблемой, а не требуют того, что просто, во-первых, несправедливо, а во-вторых, невозможно. А Европа занимается именно вторым.

The American negotiators Witkoff and Kushner deal with the problem and do not demand what is simply, first, unjust and, second, impossible. Europe does precisely the latter.

Германия снова «главная военная сила»; пантеоны нацистских «героев» при поддержке Европы.

Lavrov’s recent warning about German authorities talking of a new war rests on Merz’s refrain that Russia is Europe’s main threat and that Germany must again become the continent’s chief military power — as before both world wars. Lavrov treats this as no Freudian slip: they honour ancestors who served Nazism. That helps explain support for Zelensky’s exhumation of Nazi criminals’ remains from European graves for reburial as “heroes” at Kyiv’s Lavra “citadel of heroes,” with Europe gladly aiding such pantheons. People like Merz, he does not rule out, may try to repeat their ancestors’ “feats.”

Германия должна в очередной раз снова стать главной военной силой на континенте.

Germany must once again become the main military force on the continent.

я не исключаю … что вот такие люди, как Мерц, они способны опять попытаться повторить подвиги своих предков.

I do not rule out … that people like Merz are capable of again trying to repeat their ancestors’ feats.

Захват судна по иску Нафтогаза — позор и пиратская схема с флагами; готовность «дать по зубам».

On a Russian vessel seized by Norway on a Naftogaz claim with no allegation of wrongdoing by the ship itself — MFA spokeswoman Zakharova called it piracy — Lavrov agrees. The ship was on lawful scientific and tourist work toward Svalbard under the 1920 treaty. Norwegian justice and the state are shamed for letting Crimea-referendum non-recognition lawsuits turn into worldwide grab-what-lies-poorly compensation. The same dangerous pattern hits the so-called shadow fleet: tankers are seized, then the seizing state’s ambassador threatens to cut aid unless the flag state instantly denounces its own flag as fake. Putin has said Russia is ready to “give them a punch in the teeth” if needed — not a figure of speech; details, as with British provocations, remain military secrets.

Вся эта история — это, конечно, позор норвежской Фемиды в первую очередь, но и норвежского государства.

This whole story is, of course, a disgrace for Norwegian Themis first of all, but also for the Norwegian state.

Президент сказал, что в случае необходимости мы готовы дать им по зубам. … это не просто фигура речи, это чёткая позиция.

The president said that if necessary we are ready to give them a punch in the teeth. … This is not merely a figure of speech; it is a clear position.

Возможная встреча трёх в Китае (Шэньчжэнь); Путин едва ли откажется.

Asked about Washington talk of a real chance for a three-presidents meeting in China in November, Lavrov says it is nobody’s formal wish-list item but political common sense when the leaders of three major powers are in one place at one time — expected around Shenzhen under Chinese hosts. If the programme allows and an offer comes, he is more than sure Putin would not refuse.

Это не американское, не китайское, не российское пожелание. Это просто … опыт политический, когда три лидера трёх крупнейших мировых держав … оказываются в одно время в одном месте.

It is not an American, Chinese or Russian wish. It is simply … political experience when three leaders of three of the world’s largest powers … find themselves at the same time in the same place.

я даже более чем уверен, что президент не откажется от такой возможности.

I am even more than sure that the president will not refuse such an opportunity.

Прогнозы неблагодарны; ежедневное продвижение — факт; советов режиму от «хозяев» нет.

On the operation’s remaining duration Lavrov echoes that war is ungrateful terrain for forecasts, but daily forward movement is a fact. Much depends on how sensible the advice of the Kyiv regime’s patrons becomes; so far there are only demands to throw ever more Ukrainians into the furnace via street round-ups and to endure a catastrophic economy. The host closes by noting Lavrov’s place atop the United Russia list and wishing electoral luck; Lavrov thanks him for the kind word.

война — дело не очень благодарное для того, чтобы делать прогнозы. Но то, что мы движемся и то, что мы с каждым днём продвигаемся вперёд — это факт.

War is not a very grateful matter for making forecasts. But that we are moving and that we advance every day — that is a fact.

Пока советов толковых мы не слышим. Есть только требования … всё больше и больше украинцев бросать в эту топку.

So far we hear no sensible advice. There are only demands … to throw more and more Ukrainians into this furnace.