Lifting sanctions on Russia part of peace talks with Ukraine

"At present, the Russian and Ukrainian delegations are actually discussing on a daily basis via video-conferencing a draft of a possible treaty," Lavrov said in comments to China's official Xinhua news agency published on the Russian foreign ministry's website.

"The talks' agenda also includes, among others, the issues of denazificiation, the recognition of new geopolitical realities, the lifting of sanctions, the status of the Russian language," Lavrov added.

"We are in favour of continuing the negotiations, although they are difficult," Lavrov said.

The conflict between Moscow and Kyiv, as well as the long-running Ukraine crisis, is a direct result of the West’s push to create a unipolar world, one which involved NATO’s unabated eastward expansion, Lavrov added elsewhere in his remarks. 

“The US and NATO have always seen Ukraine as an instrument of containing Russia,” the minister said, adding that the reasons that eventually prompted Moscow to launch its military operation in Ukraine stem from a years-long western policy that included stirring up anti-Russian sentiment among Ukrainians and forcing them to make a “false choice” between the West and Russia.