At a Tense G20, UK Minister Rips 'Tsarist Imperialism'

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he saw no will to achieve peace in Ukraine, only glorified imperialism, 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, the AP reports. "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.

Lammy said Lavrov left his seat in the meeting room when it was Lammy's turn to speak. No details of Lavrov's speech were released. The G20 gathering on Thursday and Friday comes days after landmark bilateral talks between the US and Russia over ending the war in Ukraine. Those talks did not include Washington's European allies and Ukraine. President Trump has further upended the West's position by criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and falsely blaming Ukraine for the full-scale invasion by Russia. There's been no movement toward a negotiated settlement, Lammy said. 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.

In his own speech, a text of which was released by the UK Foreign Office, Lammy criticized Russia for what he called "tsarist imperialism." He told the gathering: "You know, mature countries learn from their colonial failures and their wars, and Europeans have had much to learn over the generations and the centuries. But I'm afraid to say that Russia has learned nothing." Lammy said he hoped to hear sympathy "for the innocent victims of the aggression" as well as a readiness to seek peace. "What I heard was the logic of imperialism dressed up as a realpolitik, and I say to you all, we should not be surprised, but neither should we be fooled."

(More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)