Pompeo and Lavrov have met before, when the US top diplomat traveled to Russia in May, and again the following month, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan. 

TThe last time Lavrov visited Washington for a ministerial-level meeting – when Pompeo was still the head of the CIA – the US-Russia ties were already getting chilly amid the ‘Russiagate’ drama. Two-and-a-half years later, there is a pile-up of what seems like never-ending sanctions and (un)diplomatic moves – and that’s aside from the crumbling arms control agreements and tense standoffs in Syria and Ukraine, which have to be discussed and coordinated. 

The Lavrov-Pompeo talks came a day after the landmark presidential-level meeting of the Normandy Four group (Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine) in Paris, conceived back in 2014 to try and stop the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Those were seen as an important step to reinvigorate the intra-Ukrainian peace process that has largely stalled over the past two years. Notably, the talks were the first time Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky met. 

It would seem likely that Moscow has used the chance to convey its position to the US, another key player in Ukraine but one absent at the Paris talks.

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