Russia continues to be ready to hold a second Russia-US summit in Budapest, provided it genuinely builds on the well-crafted results of the Alaska meeting. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated this in an unpublished interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, in response to the journalist’s question about what went wrong after the Anchorage summit.

According to Lavrov, the conversation between the US and Russian presidents took place within the framework of the Anchorage understandings, and his subsequent phone call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was practical and useful. His words suggest that the cancellation of the Budapest meeting could have been the result of secret messages directed at the American leader, although Lavrov said he does not know where they came from.

An anonymous diplomatic source previously told Kommersant newspaper the same version of events. And the Financial Times reported that the Budapest summit was canceled due to the Moscow memorandum containing unrealistic demands.

According to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lavrov’s aforementioned interview was not published by Corriere della Sera because the media outlet declined to release it in full, without cuts or censorship. The full text of this interview can be found on the website of the Russian MFA.

The aforesaid Italian newspaper, however, has not commented on its reasons for not publishing this interview.