Transkript av intervju med utenriksminister Sergey Lavrov utført av Mediaset (italiensk media), hentet fra hjemmesiden til det Russiske Utenriksdepartementet:
Et klipp fra intervjuet:
"Question: Who can bring peace? Is there such a person, institute, or country? President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and President of France Emmanuel Macron, and Prime Minister of Italy Mario Draghi have tried. Who can get a peace process started that will result in Russia, the West and Ukraine signing a treaty?
Sergey Lavrov: It is a good question, but long overdue. All problems could have been solved peacefully by Petr Poroshenko who was elected in 2014 under the slogan “Peace in Donbass.” Then he started the war. It could have been solved by Vladimir Zelensky. During his election campaign, he presented himself as the “president of peace.” In December 2019, he promised to fulfill the Minsk agreements and adopt a law granting a special status to Donbass within the unbroken territorial integrity of Ukraine. He had every chance. All the cards and even the trump cards were in his hands.
Vladimir Zelensky chose to say publically and arrogantly that he will never abide by the Minsk agreements because allegedly this would mean the fall of the Ukrainian nation and state. Everyone who drafted and approved the Minsk agreements at the UN Security Council kept silent. They said that he could stop implementing them if he wanted but Russia should continue to. That’s who could have brought peace.
Vladimir Zelensky can also bring peace now if he stops giving illegal orders to his neo-Nazi battalions and makes them release all civilians and stop resisting.
Question: Do you want Vladimir Zelensky to surrender? Is this the condition for peace?
Sergey Lavrov: We are not demanding that he surrender. We are demanding that he give the order to release all civilians and to stop resisting. Our goal does not include regime change in Ukraine. This is the specialty of the US. They do it all over the world.
We want to ensure the safety of people in eastern Ukraine, so that they won’t be threatened by militarisation and nazification and that no threats against the Russian Federation emanate from Ukrainian territory."