John Kirby, the coordinator of strategic communications of the National Security Council of the White House, said that the United States was aware of the meetings of former American officials with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov.
He told ABC News about it.
According to a White House official, in Washington, "it was generally known that these discussions were taking place on a private level." At the same time, he assured that the US government did not participate in the negotiations.
"We didn't send messages through them. We didn't create the ground for them. We didn't encourage these discussions and we didn't generate them in any way," Kirby emphasized.
Answering a question about whether Ukraine should have known about these meetings, he noted that "there is nothing unusual in the fact that private individuals discuss any range of issues with Russian officials."
"The president was adamant: nothing will be said about Ukraine, about ending this war without Ukraine at the negotiating table. Therefore, I can understand the concern and concern about this. But I want to assure you once again that the US government is not behind these negotiations," - Kirby emphasized.
Earlier, there was information that Kyiv is concerned about reports of meetings between former American officials and Foreign Minister Serhiy Lavrov, fearing that this may indicate a weakening of support for Ukraine from the United States.
It will be recalled that the NBC News channel reported that a group of former high-ranking American officials held an informal meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in April this year to "lay the groundwork for potential negotiations to end the war in Ukraine."
According to the media, the participants in the negotiations informed the administration of US President Joe Biden about their content. But there later stated that they did not authorize such secret meetings and did not support them.
