MOSCOW: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday praised US President Donald Trump for blaming the Ukraine conflict on moves to admit Kyiv into the NATO military alliance.
Trump has repeatedly blamed the conflict on his predecessor, Joe Biden, and has said the nearly three years of fighting would "never have started" had he been president in 2022.
"He is the first, and so far, in my opinion, the only Western leader who has publicly and loudly said that one of the root causes of the Ukrainian situation was the previous administration's pushy line of dragging Ukraine into NATO," Lavrov said of Trump in a question-and-answer session with lawmakers in Russia's State Duma.
The comments came a day after US and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia for their first high-level talks in over three years.
Trump's diplomatic overtures towards the Kremlin have alarmed Ukraine, which fears it will be sidelined in any future peace negotiations and forced to make massive concessions to end the fighting.
The Republican has upended US foreign policy since coming to office last month, making support for Ukraine dependant on access to its rare minerals while echoing Russian President Vladimir Putin's positions on the conflict.
In a press conference in January, before his inauguration, Trump directly blamed Biden's move to admit Ukraine as a NATO member for spurring the conflict.
"A big part of the problem was Russia for many, many years -- long before Putin -- said: 'You could never have NATO involved with Ukraine'," Trump told reporters at a press conference on January 7.
"And somewhere along the line, Biden said: 'No, they should be able to join NATO.' Well, then, Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feeling about that."