Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned against sabotaging peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine if there must be progress.

“Russia is ready for this conversation but to have real progress, but not what looks like progress, we insist that an unequivocal signal be sent to Kyiv not to indulge in sabotaging,” said Mr Lavrov in a video shared by Moscow. “Russia will not engage in a cat and mouse game as it did in previous years with the peace plan for eastern Ukraine.”

According to him, President Vladimir Putin’s government does not want a referendum on a possible treaty between Russia and Ukraine to resolve the conflict.

“There is a very high probability that the negotiation process would start all over again in the event of a negative outcome in a referendum,” Mr Lavrov warned.

This was the first time he openly rejected Ukraine’s idea to put a possible treaty on the country’s neutrality to a popular vote after the withdrawal of Russian troops.

Mr Lavrov claimed that the situation in Bucha near Kyiv was being used to divert attention from the negotiations.

He rejected Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky’s accusations that Russian soldiers had carried out a massacre there.

(dpa/NAN)