Reaching a settlement to the “Ukrainian crisis” will require covering a long negotiating distance, Lavrov said in an interview with the NTV television channel.
“We’ve said more than once that we must not succumb to an exuberant perception of what’s happening: that US President Trump ‘put the Europeans and Zelensky in their place’ and is demanding that they implement… All that is fine if we want to achieve peace in Ukraine, but we’re not there yet,” Lavrov said.
He noted that talks are ongoing and a second round was held in Abu Dhabi, but “there is still a long way ahead.”
According to Lavrov, “the negotiating track consists of a whole set of components: the root causes - this is the basis of our position - Russia’s security and the rights of Russians and Russian-speaking people in Ukraine, in full accordance with international law and the UN Charter.”
He added that recognition of territories “directly follows from the root causes.” In his telling, Russia seized Ukrainian territories because there were allegedly “attempts to create a threat to us, to destroy people who had lived there for centuries.”
Lavrov said the “details being considered between the militaries are multifaceted and significant,” so “everything must be worked out to the smallest details.”
He expressed hope the United States would “force” Ukraine and Europe “to behave properly” when a settlement is reached.
“The mechanisms to monitor how this will be implemented will require meticulous coordination, including - and above all - through military channels,” Lavrov emphasized.
He also complained that, at the moment, security guarantees for Ukraine are being discussed in the West “not in the context of pan-European security, but so that it can continue hostile actions against the Russian Federation.”
Earlier, Moscow said that work on a peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine would take at least a month and a half even under favorable negotiating conditions.
Meanwhile, Kyiv said the latest talks in Abu Dhabi focused on methods to implement a ceasefire and monitor the cessation of hostilities.
