the russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov He said lifting sanctions on Russia is the most difficult part of peace talks between Moscow and Kiev. “Currently, the Russian and Ukrainian delegations are discussing the draft of a possible agreement by videoconference every day,” Lavrov said in a commentary to Chinese news agency Xinhua, posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry website.
“Among other items on the negotiating agenda are denazification, recognition of new geopolitical realities, lifting of sanctions and the status of the Russian language,” Lavrov said. Russia is in favor of continuing the negotiations, even if they are difficult. Kiev had recently warned that the talks were in danger of failing.
NATO ‘prevents end of special operation’
Lavrov also accused NATO of using political deals and arms deliveries to prevent the end of what the official Russian side called a “special operation”. He further stated that the Russian military was doing “everything in their power to avoid civilian casualties”. Ukraine, on the other hand, reports civilian casualties every day, with nearly 1,200 civilian bodies reported to have been discovered in the Kiev region alone. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recently put the number of civilians killed in Ukraine at 2,899. However, the Bureau believes the actual numbers are significantly higher.
Lavrov added that about 1.02 million people had been brought “safely” from Ukraine to Russia since the start of the war. According to him, 120,000 of them came from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions alone.