Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that Moscow would only be ready to discuss the fate of a group of Ukrainian sailors it captured last month after their trial was finished.
The United States and the European Union have called on Russia to free the 24 Ukrainian sailors who were detained by Russia on Nov. 25 near Russian-annexed Crimea. Moscow accuses them of illegally entering Russian waters, something Kiev denies.
Lavrov, speaking at a news conference in Milan, said Russia would only be willing to discuss the sailors' fate and the possibility of coming to some kind of agreement with Ukraine about them once their trial in Crimea was over.
No date for their trial has yet been set.
Russia believes the United States is ultimately trying to ruin the New START nuclear weapons treaty by moving to exit the Cold War-era Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, Lavrov said.
A senior U.S. official said on Thursday that Russia must scrap its 9M729 nuclear-capable cruise missiles and launchers or modify the weapons' range to return to compliance with the 1987 INF treaty and avert a U.S. pullout from the pact.
"The impression is given that the ground is simply being prepared for this document (New START) also to be ruined as a result," Lavrov told reporters at a news conference in Milan.
Lavrov also said on Friday that the detention of Chinese technology giant Huawei's chief financial officer in Canada was an example of "arrogant" U.S. policy abroad.
Speaking at a news conference in Milan, Lavrov said the detention showed how Washington imposes its laws beyond its jurisdiction.
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, 46, who is also the daughter of the company founder, was arrested on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. The arrest, revealed by Canadian authorities late on Wednesday, was part of a U.S. investigation into an alleged scheme to use the global banking system to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran, people familiar with the probe told reporters.
