Russia’s top diplomat on Wednesday said the country would insist on being a part of any future security guarantees for Ukraine, a condition that European and Ukrainian officials widely see as absurd.
It was the clearest sign yet that enormous gaps remain in the negotiations over a possible end to Russia’s invasion. And it added to the uncertainty over how a European effort to rally a “coalition of the willing” to protect a postwar Ukraine, possibly with Western soldiers stationed inside the country, would fit into President Trump’s plans for a peace deal with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
The Trump administration has trumpeted a breakthrough in talks with Russia this month, claiming that Mr. Putin had accepted a proposal for the West to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as strong as Article 5 of the NATO charter, which stipulates that an attack on one alliance member is considered an attack on all.
Mr. Trump said on Monday that Mr. Putin had “agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine,” calling it a “very significant step.” Steve Witkoff, a special envoy for Mr. Trump, said that Mr. Putin had made the “game-changing” concession of letting the United States and Europe offer “Article 5-like protection” to Ukraine.
The Kremlin has long said it is open to offers of such guarantees for Ukraine from foreign countries. But with a catch: Russia, the Russian government says, should be one of the guarantors, and no Western troops should be based in Ukraine.
Those caveats remain in place, Mr. Lavrov indicated on Wednesday. He said that the kind of security guarantee for Ukraine that Russia would accept was of the sort that Russia and Ukraine were negotiating when they held peace talks in the early months of the war in 2022.