MOSCOW: Moscow expects talks between Russia and Ukraine to continue but “new territorial realities” must be recognized and new systems of security guarantees formed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in remarks published on Wednesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops. Russia now controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine.
“For peace to be durable, the new territorial realities ... must be recognized and formalized in international legal terms,” Lavrov said in an interview to Indonesian Kompas newspaper, according to a transcript provided on the website of Russia’s foreign ministry.
“A new system of security guarantees for Russia and Ukraine must be formed as an integral element of a pan-continental architecture of equal and indivisible security in Eurasia.”
In an indirect reference to Moscow’s continued opposition to Ukraine joining NATO, Lavrov said that “Ukraine should be guaranteed a neutral, non-aligned, and non-nuclear status.”
