Read NV on Google
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, August 17, 2026 (Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow conducts diplomacy “man to man” and hopes to reach an understanding with U.S. President Donald Trump over Ukraine, The Moscow Times reported on Aug. 28.
“We are used to doing business, you could say, nobly — or man to man, which is essentially the same thing,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russian propagandists.
He referred to Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s summit with Trump in Alaska in August 2025 and again claimed that the two sides had reached “understandings” on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.
As described by Lavrov, those purported understandings appeared to include the withdrawal of Ukraine’s Defense Forces from Donbas.
“We shook hands,” Lavrov said of the Putin-Trump meeting.
Lavrov then complained that Ukraine and the European Union had “hung onto Trump’s arms” and “buried” the understandings allegedly reached in Anchorage, resulting in a change in Washington’s position on the war.
At the same time, Lavrov acknowledged that Trump had described the issue of transferring all of Donbas to Russian control as “difficult” after his talks with Putin.
No agreement reached in Alaska, Rubio says
Trump and Putin met in Anchorage, Alaska, on Aug. 15, 2025, their first face-to-face meeting since 2019.
The war in Ukraine was the summit’s main topic.
The meeting ended without any agreement being announced, although Trump subsequently suggested that Ukraine might have to make territorial concessions.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on June 25, 2026, that “there was no agreement in Alaska” and that Russia had only made a proposal.
Rubio later said the approach Moscow proposed in Anchorage had failed because it was unacceptable to Ukraine.
The military war may be swinging in our favor, but the information war continues.
Just as an army needs soldiers, so does a free society need its journalists to ensure that people have access to honest, trustworthy voices to understand the world around them.
For the past five years, The New Voice of Ukraine has been working tirelessly to push back against Russian narratives and defend democracy. But we cannot do it alone.
Please consider supporting us on Patreon for just $5 a month – your donation does directly to supporting journalists and ensuring that this front of the infowar says solid and defended.
Thank you.
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News
