Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Russia insists on the demilitarization of Ukraine and will write a specific list of weapons the nation cannot possess.
Lavrov said in an interview with Al Jazeera that “specific types of firearms must be identified that will never be deployed in Ukraine and will not be created,” according to an interview with Reuters.
The news comes amid the second round of talks between Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday. Russia has reportedly insisted on recognizing two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine and will also not give up the Crimean peninsula, which the country took in 2014.
On Tuesday, more than 100 diplomats at a UN conference in Geneva left a speech by Lavrov, who accused Ukraine of human rights abuses against Russian minorities, Al Jazeera reported.
Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine last week and said on Wednesday it had taken control of the country’s first major city, Kherson, which Ukrainian authorities are challenging.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who emerged as a war hero in the conflict, has called for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine during the talks.
Zelensky applied for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union and also accused the International Court of Justice of human rights violations.