Russia ready for talks on ‘sustainable, just peace,’ not ceasefire: Lavrov

Russia is ready for negotiations on a sustainable and just peace in Ukraine but will not pause fighting during talks, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday.

Lavrov told a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine in New York that the Russian position was based on “bitter experience.”

“Having learned from bitter experience, we will not pause the special military operation for the period of negotiations in any format,” he said.

European countries were seeking a pause to gain time to replenish the Ukrainian military’s depleted arsenals, he said.

The top diplomat also said Moscow remained ready for negotiations aimed at achieving a sustainable peace in Ukraine.

“As US President Donald Trump said in August 2025, after the meeting in Anchorage, everyone agrees that we need to seek not some agreement on a ceasefire, but a long-term peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine that will reliably put an end to the war,” he said. “Russia, and President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly confirmed this — is ready for negotiations to achieve precisely such a sustainable, just peace.”

Lavrov said US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner had confirmed during their visit to Moscow that Washington remained interested in helping achieve a settlement of the Ukraine conflict.

Witkoff and Kushner visited Moscow on Sept. 5, where they were received by Putin, before traveling to Kyiv the following day for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Putin and Trump subsequently held a telephone conversation Sept. 8 to discuss the results of the diplomatic efforts.

Lavrov also said Ukraine could have remained within its 1991 borders if France, Germany and Poland had honored their commitments to guarantee the implementation of an agreement between the Ukrainian opposition in 2013 – 2014 and the government and had not allowed “a coup in Ukraine.”

“They cheated,” he said, referring to the three European countries. He argued that this ultimately led to the war, as a result of which Ukraine lost part of its territory.