MOSCOW, February 6. /TASS/. The West needs the Kiev regime to continue "biting" Russia, Moscow’s top diplomat Sergey Lavrov said.

Answering media questions after talks with Ignazio Cassis, Swiss foreign minister and current Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) chairman-in-office, and OSCE Secretary General Feridun Sinirlioglu, Lavrov mentioned the guarantees that had been developed for Ukraine in 2022. "It was a fair process back then, but now, it’s about providing security guarantees to a regime that the West wants to preserve at all costs, only for it to continue trying to bite Russia," the foreign minister noted. "Only for it to continue providing its territory for the deployment of Western weapons directed at Russia," he added.

"Clearly, it’s not a serious conversation," the top diplomat stressed.

Previous security guarantees

Lavrov emphasized that "the security guarantees that were put forward in April 2022 had been agreed on based on a draft presented by Ukraine and stipulated that the security of the entire region, including Ukraine, would be guaranteed, while five permanent members of the [UN] Security Council, including Russia and China, as well as Germany and Turkey, will act as guarantor countries."

"In accordance with the Ukrainian proposal, the guarantors were supposed to act and make decisions only by consensus, and the idea was that no military bases would be set up and no military drills would be conducted without the consent of all guarantor countries, including Russia and China," Lavrov observed. He specified that "these security guarantees were contained in the document that was initialed, and we were ready to sign it and draw up a legal agreement on its basis."

According to Lavrov, the West now suggests "doing the opposite of the collective guarantees that were agreed on in April 2022." "However, few now remember what happened then. It raises uncomfortable questions. <...> Why were the Ukrainians prohibited from signing a peace agreement with Russia four years ago, which had already been initialed?" he added.

"The story was canceled. The story begins where our Western colleagues find it convenient," Lavrov went on to say. In this regard, he noted that the developments preceding Crimea’s reunification with Russia had also been "canceled." "The West is ashamed to mention it. Or perhaps, it is just unwilling to engage in a debate where it has no argument to make. This is why it’s crucial to see the entire picture, including the underlying causes of all conflicts," Lavrov conflicted.