Lavrov says Russia open to talks on Ukraine

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on December 29 that Moscow was open to talks on Ukraine, but the agreements should become unbreakable.

"For my part, I would like to emphasize that we can only talk about reliable, legally binding agreements, which should eliminate the root causes of the conflict and which should enshrine a mechanism for the impossibility of their violation," Lavrov said in an interview with TASS.

He recalled Russian President Vladimir Putin's words that Russia is always ready for negotiations.

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Earlier, on 26 December, Lavrov said that France had offered Russia to start a dialog on the Ukrainian conflict without Ukraine's participation in the negotiations. The minister noted that with such proposals Paris violated the Western rule that no negotiations on the conflict in Ukraine can take place without Kiev's participation in them.

The last round of talks between Russia and Ukraine was held in Istanbul on March 29, 2022. They lasted about three hours. Later, Kiev officially refused contacts with Moscow. On October 4 of the same year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose powers expired in May 2024, put into effect the decision of the country's National Security and Defense Council on the impossibility of holding talks with Putin.

The special operation to protect Donbass, which Russia announced on February 24, 2022, is still ongoing. The decision was taken against the backdrop of the aggravated situation in the region.