Russia’s foreign minister accused Ukraine and the West of seeking to destroy his country and said Kyiv must accept Moscow’s demands for ending the war or else watch as the Russian armed forces achieve them on the battlefield.
Sergei Lavrov’s comments, made late on Monday amid continued heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine, came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was open to negotiations, but only on Moscow’s terms.
These include Ukraine recognising Russia’s conquest of a fifth of its territory.
Kyiv, armed and supported by the United States and its NATO allies, says it will recover all its occupied territory and drive out all Russian soldiers.
“Our proposals for the demilitarization and denazification of the territories controlled by the regime, the elimination of threats to Russia’s security emanating from there, including our new lands, are well known to the enemy,” state news agency TASS quoted Lavrov as saying.
“The point is simple: Fulfil them for your own good. Otherwise, the issue will be decided by the Russian army.”
Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, calling it a “special operation” to “denazify” and demilitarise Ukraine, which he cast as a pawn of the West that threatened Russia.
Kyiv and the West say Putin’s invasion amounts to an imperialist land grab. The United States and its allies have imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia for its invasion and sent billions of dollars in assistance to the Ukrainian government.
Just last week, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was visiting Washington, the United States announced another $1.85 billion in military assistance for Ukraine, including a transfer of the Patriot Air Defense System, angering Moscow.
“It is no secret to anyone that the strategic goal of the United States and its NATO allies is to defeat Russia on the battlefield as a mechanism for significantly weakening or even destroying our country,” Lavrov told TASS.
While Moscow had planned a swift operation to take over its neighbour, the war is now in its 11th month, marked by many embarrassing Russian battlefield setbacks.
In the latest attack to expose gaps in Russia’s air defences, a drone believed to be Ukrainian penetrated hundreds of kilometres through Russian airspace on Monday, causing a deadly explosion at the main base for its strategic bombers.
Moscow said on Monday it had shot down a drone believed to be Ukrainian, causing it to crash at the Engels air base, where three service members were killed. Ukraine did not comment, under its usual policy on incidents inside Russia.
The base, the main airfield for the bombers that Kyiv says Moscow has used to attack Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, is hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian frontier. The same planes are also designed to launch nuclear-capable missiles as part of Russia’s long-term strategic deterrent.
The Russian defence ministry said in a statement no planes were damaged, but Russian and Ukrainian social media accounts said several had been destroyed.
