While work is underway on the Trump-Putin-Zelensky trilateral (in which Ukraine's possible territorial concessions to Russia will necessarily have to be discussed), the EU and NATO, together with the United States, are studying the security guarantees to be given to Ukraine after a possible peace agreement .
But Moscow is holding back: "Discussing security guarantees in Ukraine without Russia is a road that leads nowhere," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying by the Ria Novosti agency.
"We cannot accept," Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow, "that there is now a proposal to resolve issues of security, of collective security, without Russia. It won't work. We have already explained several times that Russia does not exaggerate its own interests, but we will firmly and rigorously guarantee our legitimate interests."
Moscow's foreign minister said he was "sure that the West, and especially the United States, understand perfectly well that seriously discussing security issues without Russia is a utopia, a road to nowhere."
Moscow rejects any deployment of a European military contingent in Ukraine after the peace, as proposed by several countries, including France. And it reiterates the security guarantees submitted in a document by Kiev's own negotiators in 2022, during the negotiations that ultimately foundered in Istanbul. "An excellent example, we had accepted that document," which stipulated, among other things, that Ukraine's security would also be guaranteed by the permanent members of the UN Security Council. Therefore, "Russia and China, as well as the US, France, and Great Britain."
Lavrov accused the Europeans of "aggressively escalating the situation; they are simply clumsily trying to change the Trump administration's line and keep the United States in the arms race." The minister, however, expressed his satisfaction that "this totally adventurous, confrontational, and warmongering position finds no echo in the current American administration," which, he said, is striving to "help eliminate the root causes of the conflict."
