Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said Moscow's priority in any potential agreement to resolve the situation in Ukraine is legally binding security guarantees.
"The format is secondary. We need the most reliable security guarantees. That is the most important thing. How it will be implemented is another matter," Grushko said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia has not rejected peace negotiations with Ukraine. Putin also outlined the principles on which Moscow is ready to negotiate with Kiev.
The principles Putin pointed to include the realities on the ground, the 2022 Istanbul agreements, the understandings reached at the Alaska summit, and the main theses of his speech at the Russian Foreign Ministry in 2024.
In his 2024 speech, Putin stated that to end the Ukraine conflict, Kiev must withdraw its troops from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and renounce its plans to join NATO.