Did Russia just junk peace moves? Lavrov says Ukraine security guarantees without Moscow ‘will not work’

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov questioned NATO’s latest meeting on providing security guarantees to Ukraine, insisting that a move like this would go “nowhere without Russia”. The remarks came just hours after NATO defence chiefs held a “candid discussion” on Wednesday about what security guarantees they could offer Ukraine.

Italian admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of NATO’s military committee, noted that 32 defence chiefs from across the alliance held a video conference amid a diplomatic push to end the war that has been raging on for three-and-a-half years.

The Russian diplomat made the remarks after US President Donald Trump ruled out sending American troops to Ukraine to enforce a potential peace deal. “We are in favour of a security guarantee for Ukraine being reliable,” Lavrov said, adding: “Questions of security cannot be resolved without Russia.”

“We cannot agree with the fact that now it is proposed to resolve questions of security, collective security, without the Russian Federation. This will not work,” he maintained. The Russian foreign minister insisted that discussions on security guarantees to Ukraine without Russia on the table are too “utopic”.

“I am sure that in the West and above all in the United States they understand perfectly well that seriously discussing security issues without the Russian Federation is a utopia, it’s a road to nowhere,” he said. Earlier this month, Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders to discuss the takeaways from his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump rules out sending American troops to Ukraine

Meanwhile, in a phone interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Trump was asked if he could assure Americans that the US would not deploy troops on the ground in Ukraine. “You have my assurance, and I’m president,” Trump responded.

However, he maintained that Washington might still be prepared to provide air support to Ukraine as part of efforts to secure a deal. “There’ll be some form of security. It can’t be NATO,” he said, ruling out Ukraine’s membership in the alliance. “They’re willing to put people on the ground. We’re willing to help them with things, especially, probably, if you could talk about it by air.”

On Wednesday, Lavrov praised the US’s new stance of ruling out Ukraine’s NATO membership: “The United States has an increasingly clear understanding of the root causes of the Ukraine crisis,” he said. He also noted that any encounter between Putin and Zelenskyy would have to be prepared “very thoroughly”.

In the Fox News interview, Trump acknowledged the possibility that Putin may resist an agreement. “We’re going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks … It’s possible that he doesn’t want to make a deal,” he said, warning that Putin would face a “ rough situation” if that proved true. However, we have seen in the past how the US changed its stance on sanctioning Russia.