Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said Moscow does not know what security guarantees the United States may offer Ukraine if the war ends, and signalled that Russia would reject any guarantees designed to sustain Ukraine’s current political order on the territory it controls.
In an interview published by Russia’s foreign ministry, Lavrov said he had not seen the text of a mooted US–Ukraine security agreement and therefore could not assess it.
Lavrov’s position cuts across a core element of the US approach. US and Ukrainian officials have presented post-war guarantees as central to any settlement, with Kyiv arguing that enforceable assurances must precede any discussion of territorial compromise. Lavrov, however, indicated that any guarantees framed as a US-backed shield for Ukraine would be unacceptable to Moscow, and argued that Russia must be a party to any security framework.
Instead, Lavrov pointed back to the Russia–Ukraine talks held in Istanbul in April 2022, describing the draft discussed there as the only “real” set of guarantees. He repeated the Russian claim that the then British prime minister, Boris Johnson, intervened to stop Kyiv accepting those terms. The episode remains contested: Zelenskyy has rejected the claim that Johnson talked Ukraine out of an agreement, calling the idea illogical, while the broader narrative has circulated in competing accounts of why the 2022 talks failed.
Lavrov’s comments come as US, Ukrainian and Russian delegations continue a structured negotiating track in Abu Dhabi. The central sticking point remains territory. Russia is demanding Ukraine withdraw from the parts of Donetsk region still held by Kyiv, while Ukraine refuses to concede territory it has not lost in combat.
Other disputes sit alongside the territorial question. They include whether any settlement would involve international peacekeepers, what status the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant would have, and how a deal would be sequenced—whether security arrangements come before, or follow, any territorial understanding.
The current pattern echoes an earlier breakdown in the Trump administration’s mediation. In October 2025, a planned Trump–Putin summit in Budapest was cancelled after Russia set out conditions described by the Financial Times and Reuters as uncompromising, including additional territorial concessions, sharp limits on Ukraine’s armed forces and a permanent bar on NATO membership. Days later, the US Treasury announced sanctions targeting major Russian oil companies, including Rosneft and Lukoil, as part of the pressure campaign tied to Russia’s energy revenues.
Against that backdrop, Moscow can still gain from keeping the talks running even if its public stance remains unchanged. A live diplomatic channel can help limit the risk of fresh US pressure, whether in the form of additional sanctions or decisions on military assistance. It can also encourage restraint among European governments considering more forceful steps, including on the use of frozen Russian assets, where allied approaches have not been fully aligned.
A further calculation is time. While the Abu Dhabi channel continues, Russia maintains battlefield operations and strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. Moscow may calculate that sustained military pressure, alongside ongoing diplomacy, will eventually push Kyiv towards terms closer to those Lavrov sets out publicly.
The Kremlin has also pushed a framing in which any decisive step would be leader-to-leader. On Thursday, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia had invited Zelenskyy to come to Moscow for peace talks and was awaiting a response. Kyiv has previously rejected similar invitations.
Lavrov has left rhetorical space for American input, saying Russia would listen to “fair” proposals from Washington. But his message is that Russia’s baseline has not shifted: it wants a settlement anchored to Moscow’s interpretation of the 2022 Istanbul draft and to its current territorial demands, rather than a deal structured around US-backed guarantees for Ukraine.
For negotiators, that creates a practical test. Technical working groups can refine language and sequencing, but meaningful progress depends on whether Moscow is willing to accept limits on what it can achieve through diplomacy and force. Until that choice is made, the process may serve less as a route to early peace than as a way for Russia to reduce the risk of fresh Western sanctions.
