[UPDATED: Aug. 20, 5:25 pm , Kyiv time. Clarified the nature of Lavrov’s statement]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday called for Moscow and its ally China to be involved in security guarantees for Kyiv as talks progress.

Lavrov’s comments came after US President Donald Trump agreed to provide security guarantees for post-war Ukraine in the form of air support without troop deployments following his talks with Kyiv and Europe on Monday.

Lavrov, as cited by Russian media, has called for Beijing’s involvement in the process “on an equal basis.”

Beijing has provided materiel support for Moscow’s invasion but stopped short of directly endorsing the invasion. Its foreign minister also reportedly told the EU that China cannot abide a Russian defeat in Ukraine at a recent summit.

On Wednesday, Lavrov also described the exclusion of Moscow from the security guarantees for Kyiv – a warring party with Ukraine – as a “path to nowhere.”

“I am sure that the West, primarily the United States, understands perfectly well that seriously discussing the issue of ensuring security without Russia is a utopia, a path to nowhere,” Lavrov said.

While Lavrov’s remarks highlighted Moscow’s role in shaping the security guarantees rather than directly providing them, a summary of his statement by Russian state media RIA Novosti suggested otherwise.

“Moscow will not agree to collective security guarantees for resolving the Ukrainian crisis being adopted without Russia’s participation,” the outlet wrote in its update, citing Lavrov’s comments.

As of Wednesday, Aug. 20, 10 nations, including France and the UK, have reportedly voiced openness to deploy troops to Ukraine as part of the post-war security guarantees.

The purpose of the security guarantees is to prevent a future Russian invasion of Ukraine. Suggesting that Moscow be involved in providing these guarantees – or having a say on how they’re implemented – effectively implies a demilitarized Ukraine.

The neutral status of Ukraine – including demilitarization – was one of Moscow’s initial war goals when it launched the 2022 invasion.

The Moscow playbook

Russia has a history of feigning agreement with Western terms before presenting maximalist demands that are unlikely to be accepted by the West, particularly in Kyiv.

In 2021, months before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow demanded the withdrawal of NATO troops from Bulgaria and Romania – two former communist states that joined the alliance in 2004 – and a permanent ban on Ukraine’s NATO membership. Even if that ban had been accepted, Moscow would still have had a pretext to justify an invasion.

In March 2025, following Trump’s call for a ceasefire, Putin said the 30-day ceasefire proposal is “good and we absolutely support it but there are issues that we need to discuss” before questioning the effectiveness of the proposal, naming a number of “conditions that need to be studied,” with no ceasefire as of August 2025.

In May, when confronted with Europe’s sanction-or-ceasefire ultimatum, Putin proposed direct negotiations with Kyiv in Istanbul. He ultimately sent a historian in his place, and the only tangible outcome was prisoner exchanges – no ceasefire.

persuaded the US to halt arms deliveries to Kyiv and postpone planned sanctions against Russia.