Lavrov Tells the U.N. Europe Is Sabotaging Peace as Trump Urges Zelenskyy to 'Settle'

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov used his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday to accuse Europe of deliberately blocking an end to the war in Ukraine, even as President Trump publicly pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to "settle" with Vladimir Putin.

"Europe is doing everything it can to thwart peace talks in which the Trump administration is interested," Lavrov told the assembly in New York. He accused European governments of arming Kyiv and helping it strike civilians, and he made clear Moscow has no intention of backing down. "The aims of the special military operation will be achieved, the threat to Russian security will be eliminated and peaceful life will come back. This will happen no matter the circumstances," he said, using the Kremlin's term for the invasion.

Lavrov also went after the broader Western order. Quoting Putin, he said "the dictatorship of a single hegemon has run amok and is simply dangerous for everyone around it." On U.N. Security Council reform, he said Germany and Japan should not get new permanent seats because they had "embarked on a path of militarisation and revanchism," and backed seats for Brazil and India along with more African representation, according to U.N. News.

Before the speech, Lavrov met German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, the first meeting between the two countries' top diplomats since before the war began in 2022. The talks came at a tense moment. Berlin has accused Moscow of orchestrating an attempted drone attack on Leipzig airport, and each country has ordered one of the other's consulates closed. Several European governments have warned in recent days of a rise in Russian sabotage on their soil. In his own speech, Wadephul said "Russia's war targets the lives of millions of innocent people, the existence of the Ukrainian state and culture and the European peace order," and urged Moscow to negotiate.

Mr. Trump, speaking the same day about his meeting with Zelenskyy earlier in the week, said he hoped both leaders would come to terms soon. "You know what I want him to do? Make a deal," he said of Zelenskyy. "I want him to settle with Putin, and I want Putin to settle with him." He added that "someday, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, maybe before the heavy winter, they'll make a deal."

The fighting shows no sign of easing. Both sides have stepped up attacks after the deadliest summer of the war since 2022. Russian strikes killed four people across Ukraine on Saturday, officials said, while Kyiv kept hitting Russian oil refineries and industrial sites with long-range drones. U.S.-led efforts have so far failed to produce a lasting ceasefire.

Zelenskyy, who said after Tuesday's meeting that he trusted the White House could help end the invasion, struck a harder tone by the weekend. Russia is "escalating every single day," he wrote on social media. "If the Russians have chosen to make their strikes even more brutal, the world must choose stronger responses to keep the war from spreading further."