Russia insists on role in talks over Ukraine's security guarantees

Russia must be part of any international talks on Ukraine's security, Moscow has said, as the Kremlin continues to stall on Donald Trump's push for a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

- Pjotr Sauer

Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said yesterday that Moscow must be included in any talks on Ukraine's security guarantees, dismissing European diplomacy as "aggressive escalation" and a "clumsy effort to sway Trump".

"To discuss security guarantees seriously without Russia is a road to nowhere," Lavrov said during a working visit to Jordan.

Lavrov also said that China, Russia's ally in the war, should be among Ukraine's security guarantors - reviving a proposal first put forward by Russian negotiators during talks in Turkey in spring 2022.

European leaders have begun exploring post-conflict security guarantees for Ukraine, following Trump's pledge to help protect the country under any deal to end Russia's war.

Russian officials have repeatedly said Moscow would not accept the deployment of European forces to Ukraine, one of the key security guarantees under discussion.

Kyiv is likely to view with scepticism any prospect of China, a supporter of Russia during the war, acting as a security guarantor.

Lavrov, meanwhile, avoided any direct reference to a possible Putin-Zelenskyy summit, highlighting the Kremlin's apparent plans to delay any concrete planning of a meeting.

Trump announced this week that he had "begun the arrangements" for the first meeting between the two leaders since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.

The US president later claimed he had set up a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, explaining: "I thought I'd first let them meet."