Daily SumUp

The Russian government issued its strongest statement yet Wednesday against a provisional cease-fire agreed by the US and Ukraine a day earlier following marathon talks in Saudi Arabia.

“Nobody is talking to us,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with pro-Kremlin US bloggers.

“They keep saying, ‘nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,’ but they do everything about Russia without Russia.”

Lavrov also reiterated that Russia would not accept peacekeeping troops from any NATO country on Ukrainian territory “under any conditions,” a direct rebuke to a proposal floated by French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.