US administration ‘did not sanction those discussions’, says Washington, after news reports that top former US officials met Russian foreign minister
President Joe Biden’s administration did not sanction or support secret meetings that former top US national security officials held with the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and other Russians on potential talks to end the Ukraine war, the White House and state department have said.
NBC News reported that the former US officials met Lavrov in New York in April, joined by Richard Haass, a former US diplomat and outgoing president of the council on foreign relations, and two former White House aides.
