Any settlement of the conflict must eliminate its root causes and address Moscows security concerns, the foreign minister has said

Moscow and Kiev maintain "direct contact," and the Kremlin is open to continued negotiations to resolve the conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

In an interview with the Indonesian newspaper Kompas released on Wednesday, Lavrov confirmed that Moscow's top priority remains settling the crisis via peaceful means, adding that it is taking concrete steps to achieve that goal.

Lavrov recalled that Moscow initiated the resumption of direct Russia-Ukraine talks this spring, resulting in three rounds of direct negotiations in Istanbul, Türkiye. He noted that the sides reached "certain progress," including prisoner exchanges and the repatriation of the bodies of dead soldiers.

"Each side presented its perspective on the prerequisites for ending the conflict. The heads of the delegations remain in direct contact. We expect the negotiations to continue," Lavrov added, without providing details regarding when the next round of talks could be expected, or what issues would be on the agenda.

The foreign minister also noted that Russia and Ukraine had held talks early on in the conflict, which led to preliminary agreements on ending the hostilities, "but then the Kiev regime, following the advice of its Western handlers, walked away from a peace treaty, choosing instead to continue the war."

Moscow earlier accused then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson of derailing the peace process by advising Kiev to keep fighting. Johnson has denied the claim.

Lavrov stressed, however, that a durable peace between Moscow and Kiev "is impossible without eradicating the underlying causes of the conflict," most notably the threats posed to Russia's security by "NATO's expansion and attempts to drag Ukraine into this aggressive military bloc."

"These threats must be eliminated, and a new system of security guarantees for Russia and Ukraine must be formed," the minister said.

Moscow earlier did not rule out Western security guarantees for Kiev, but on condition that they should not be "one-sided" and aimed at containing Russia.

Russia has, in particular, opposed the deployment of Western troops to Ukraine under any pretext, arguing that this would be tantamount to moving NATO's bases towards its borders.

(RT.com)