🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s answer to a media question at a joint news conference with Peru’s Foreign Minister Carlos Espa (Moscow, November 9, 2026) ❓ Question: What are your expectations for the upcoming talks in Abu Dhabi? Speaking about the talks earlier, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the conflict would have to be resolved before discussions could begin on security guarantees for Ukraine and Europe. We noticed that the Russian delegation has been expanded this time to include Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov. Does this mean there will be a separate negotiating track? 💬 Sergey Lavrov: I heard US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s remarks about the growing importance of security issues, both at the Abu Dhabi talks and in the broader context of the Ukraine conflict. In fact, the first item on the agenda in Abu Dhabi is the security of Russia, Ukraine and the region as a whole. We can only welcome this approach. Let me remind you what we did to avert what would otherwise have been inevitable. We know what plans the Kiev regime was making in late 2021 and early 2022 to resolve the Donbass issue by force. In December 2021, acting on instructions from President Vladimir Putin, we presented the US and NATO members with two draft treaties aimed at strengthening the foundations of equal and indivisible security. Several meetings followed. A Russian interagency delegation met with our NATO counterparts. I then met in Geneva with Antony Blinken, who was US Secretary of State at the time. We explained to him in detail why it was essential to do everything in our power to put the principles of indivisible security into practice. These principles had been proclaimed loud and clear at the highest level of the OSCE, 👉yet they were being swept under the carpet. One of them states that no organisation in the Euro-Atlantic area has the right to claim military and political dominance. NATO was doing precisely the opposite. That principle was endorsed as far back as 1999 at the Istanbul Summit and reaffirmed in 2010 at the Astana Summit. After the talks between the Russian and US delegations, during which we pressed these points, Antony Blinken asked to speak to me in private. He told me we would get nowhere. The US had already made its decision, he said. By then, the Americans had withdrawn from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and were preparing to deploy these missiles in various parts of the world. ☝️ Antony Blinken said the only assurance they could give us was that there might be limits on the deployment in Ukraine of intermediate- and shorter-range missiles aimed at Russia. As for a guarantee that Ukraine would stay out of NATO, he said that was out of the question. They would never make such a promise. In other words, the administration of then US President Joe Biden could not have cared less about “European security”, particularly the security of Russia, which is our primary concern. We can only welcome the fact that the current US negotiators, acting on instructions from President Donald Trump, have proposed putting collective security at the top of the agenda for the talks on a settlement in Ukraine. 👉 Everyone understands that the purpose of these talks is to agree on the principles to be endorsed at the conclusion of negotiations on a comprehensive settlement. It is entirely natural that another of my deputies, Sergey Ryabkov, should join Mikhail Galuzin in the delegation. His responsibilities cover North Atlantic affairs and arms control in the broadest sense. He has also spent a considerable part of his career working on OSCE matters.