Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow will not agree to halt fighting along the current front line as a precondition for peace negotiations with Ukraine, arguing that Russia had already been “deceived” once during failed talks in 2022.
Speaking at the Primakov Readings international forum on Wednesday, Lavrov said Russia remained open to negotiations but insisted any talks must involve what he called “sensible proposals” and “reasonable people” on the Ukrainian side.
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“We will not take anyone at their word,” Lavrov said.
He dismissed calls for a ceasefire along the current line of contact before negotiations begin, saying Moscow had tried a similar approach during the Istanbul talks in the early months of the war.
According to Lavrov, Russia halted military operations and withdrew forces from areas near Kyiv as a “gesture of goodwill,” only to see the negotiations collapse.
“Then we got [then-UK Prime Minister Boris] Johnson and Bucha,” Lavrov said, referring to what he claimed was Western interference following Russia’s withdrawal from the Kyiv region and the discovery of mass civilian killings in Bucha, which Moscow claims was a “staged provocation.”
As part of a potential peace agreement, Kyiv has repeatedly proposed freezing the conflict along current front lines.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has instead insisted that any settlement would require Ukraine to surrender the entire Donetsk region, including areas Russian forces have failed to seize despite more than a decade of fighting.
In High-Stakes Bluff, Putin Holds a Losing Hand
Lavrov’s remarks came just a day after he said Russia was ready to resume peace talks with Ukraine “at any time.”
“We are ready to resume them [the negotiations] at any time from where they left off,” Lavrov said Tuesday during a roundtable discussion at the Diplomatic Academy of Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
But he accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of putting forward “boorish and unrealistic” demands and blamed Kyiv’s European backers for obstructing a settlement.
Adding to Moscow’s messaging on negotiations, Putin said on Tuesday that Russia is ready for talks with Ukraine but only on the basis of agreements reached in Istanbul.
The Istanbul talks that took place in 2022, in the early weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion, produced only draft ideas on Ukrainian neutrality and security guarantees before collapsing amid battlefield changes and public outrage over Russian atrocities.
He also referenced his meeting with US President Donald Trump in Alaska, after which the Kremlin began framing a key condition for a ceasefire as Ukraine’s withdrawal from the entire Donbas region, including areas still controlled by Ukrainian forces – a demand not included in the original Istanbul draft.
Zelensky has repeatedly pushed for direct talks with Putin, including in an open letter on June 4 calling for a face-to-face meeting and an invitation to meet on the sidelines of the G7 summit to discuss ending the war.
Putin dismissed the idea of immediate talks, saying at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that such a meeting was “pointless.”
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