On the initiative of the American side, a telephonic conversation took place Saturday between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the press service of the Russian Foreign Ministry reported.

The Russian FM stressed that the propaganda campaign launched by the United States and its allies on a "Russian aggression" against Ukraine pursues provocative goals, encouraging the Ukrainian authorities to sabotage the Minsk agreements and resort to destructive attempts to resolve the "Donbas issue" by force.

Lavrov noted that the response of Washington and Brussels to the drafts of the Russian-American agreement on security guarantees with NATO and their draft agreement ignores the key provisions for Russia, first of all, not to expand NATO and not to deploy strike weapons systems near the Russian border. It was emphasized that these issues will be in the center of Russia's assessment of the documents received from the US and NATO—and which will be passed to the partners.

Lavrov reminded of the inadmissibility of actions violating the commitments made at the highest level with respect to security in the Euro-Atlantic area.

The Russian and American FMs discussed also some urgent matters of bilateral relations.