US President Donald Trump received "undercover reports", after which he "either postponed or canceled" the summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Budapest, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, which was published by the Foreign Ministry.
According to him, he does not know "where and from whom these reports came from."
"But I have outlined the outline of events to you, relying strictly on the facts for which I am responsible. And I'm not going to respond to outright fakes about "Russia's unwillingness to negotiate", "disruption" of the Anchorage results," Lavrov said.
He noted that the "understandings" reached following the Alaska summit "closely echo" the settlement terms put forward by Russian President Vladimir Putin in June 2024.
"We appreciated that these conditions were heard and accepted, including publicly, by the Donald Trump administration — first of all, with regard to the unacceptability of drawing Ukraine into NATO to create strategic military threats to Russia right on its borders," the minister explained.
The United States, according to him, also "openly admitted that it would not be possible to ignore the territorial issue following the results of those referendums that took place in five historical regions of our country, whose residents unequivocally spoke out" for joining the Russia.
He said that the American concept, which Trump's special envoy Stephen Witkoff brought to Moscow a week before the Anchorage summit, was built around security and territorial realities.
"As President Putin informed President Trump in Anchorage, we agreed to take (it) as a basis, while proposing a concrete step that opens the way to its practical implementation. The American leader said that he should consult, however, even after his meeting with the allies the next day in Washington, we did not receive a reaction to our positive response to the mentioned proposals. There was no reaction during my meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in September in New York, when I reminded her that we were still waiting for her," Lavrov said.
"To help our American colleagues decide on their own idea in essence," Moscow handed Washington a memorandum in the format of an unofficial paper (non-paper). A few days later, at Trump's request, he had a telephone conversation with Putin, during which they agreed to meet in Budapest, "having carefully prepared the summit beforehand."
"There was no doubt that it would be about Anchorage understandings. A couple of days later, we spoke with Rubio by phone, and then Washington, describing the conversation as constructive (it was really businesslike and useful), said that after it a personal meeting between the US Secretary of State and the Russian Foreign Minister was not required to prepare a high—level contact," Lavrov said.
According to him, Russia is still ready to hold a summit in Budapest, "if it really relies on the well-developed results of Alaska."