Lavrov meets Blinken during G20.

(RT) ⸻ US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi on Thursday. Blinken urged Russia to return to the New START arms control treaty, but Moscow has already insisted that Washington's "hybrid war" on Russia makes serious discussions impossible. The two diplomats met for around ten minutes, but the brief encounter was conducted on the fly and could not be considered "negotiations". In his own press conference, Blinken reaffirmed the US' support for Ukraine, raised the possibility of a prisoner exchange for jailed American Paul Whelan, and "urged Russia to reverse its irresponsible decision and return to implementing the New START treaty." Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law this week to suspend the treaty, which was the last remaining nuclear arms agreement between the US and Russia. Earlier this week, Russia's ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, said that the US must reconsider its hostile anti-Russian policy before Moscow would contemplate a return to the agreement. Antonov accused the US of violating the treaty long before Russia's withdrawal, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Washington's actions prior to the outbreak of conflict in Ukraine showed that "they were not ready to talk about anything with us." The US has also accused Russia of breaching the treaty by preventing American inspectors from traveling to its bases. Blinken and Lavrov last met in Geneva last January, and spoke by phone in July. However, Blinken has maintained that the US will keep up its military support for Ukraine "for as long as it takes," and Lavrov said in January that a subsequent message he received from Blinken offered no "serious proposals" for resolving the conflict. Zakharova said on Thursday that the US has for a long time been "in favor of the escalation of conflicts," and that diplomacy has been relegated to the background.