"This is sabotage"

"This is sabotage"

Russia believes the West is allowing "hysteria" over alleged mass killings in the Ukrainian city of Bucha to disrupt peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv, Lavrov said.

He added that the alleged events in the city, which he called a "provocation", were introduced at the very moment when progress was made in the peace negotiations in Istanbul.

"We tend to think that the reason lies in the desire to find a reason to disrupt the ongoing negotiations. And that is exactly at the moment when, as they say, the light, even if not very strong, still began to shine."

"On March 29, for the first time in the entire period of contacts between our delegations, the Ukrainian side proposed a written vision of how the agreement could look like in terms of Ukraine's status and security guarantees," the minister said.

According to Lavrov, during the negotiations with Russia, Kyiv "put on paper for the first time" its readiness to declare itself neutral, non-aligned in any bloc and non-nuclear. Moreover, he insisted, Ukrainians have formalized their refusal to deploy foreign weapons on their territory, or to conduct exercises there with the participation of a foreign army without the consent of all guarantor states of the future agreement, including Russia.

According to Lavrov, the security guarantees provided by the agreement would completely exclude NATO's expansion to the east and ensure "indivisible security on the European continent".

In addition, the minister added, the Ukrainian side itself wrote in the draft of the main provisions that security guarantees will not apply to Crimea and Donbas, which Lavrov called "advanced".

"Once again, we want to appeal to those who are leading the actions of Kyiv, and we know who they are, to understand their responsibility for security in Europe. Russia is ready for this conversation, but to have real progress, not a semblance of progress, we insist that an unequivocal signal is being sent to Kyiv not to engage in sabotage, otherwise we risk repeating the fate of the Minsk agreements and we will never agree to that," the minister said.

After the withdrawal of Russian troops from Bucha, killed civilians were discovered in the city north of Kyiv. Ukraine blames Russian forces, which were in the area until recently, but Moscow rejects that. While Western politicians sided with Ukraine on the issue, China said an investigation was needed.

Ukraine has signaled that it is still interested in a diplomatic solution to the differences with Russia. According to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, a peace agreement between Kyiv and Moscow is possible.

"Yes, because Ukraine must find peace. We are in 21st century Europe. We will continue our diplomatic and military efforts," he said during a visit to Bucha on Monday. Earlier, on March 29, another round of negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv was held in Istanbul.

Earlier, representatives of the two countries held three face-to-face meetings in Belarus. Negotiations began on February 28 in the Gomel region. Then they continued on March 3 and 7 in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. From there, the talks continued via a video link.

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