Russia on Tuesday demanded Nato to scrap its 2008 commitment to eventually grant Ukraine membership in the US-led military alliance. They also rejected the notion of Nato forces serving as peace-keepers under any ceasefire arrangement.
Following meetings in Saudi Arabia with secretary of State Marco Rubio, US national security adviser Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov described the discussions as productive, noting mutual attentiveness between parties, .
During the ongoing meeting, Russia’s foreign ministry clarified that simply denying Ukraine’s Nato membership was insufficient. “A refusal to accept Kyiv into NATO is not enough now,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in response to a question from Reuters.
She insisted Nato must explicitly revoke the promises made at the 2008 Bucharest summit.
After discussions with US officials in Riyadh, Lavrov reported that he and Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov emphasised that Nato membership for Ukraine was unacceptable to Russia. They stressed President Putin’s position that Nato’s expansion and Ukraine’s potential inclusion poses direct threats to Russian sovereignty.
Lavrov rejected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s suggestion to deploy British and other Nato forces as peacekeepers in Ukraine, which came in response to US President Donald Trump’s calls for European military self-reliance.
The 2008 Bucharest declaration represented a compromise between the US, which supported admitting Ukraine and Georgia, and hesitant European powers like France and Germany.
Nato maintains its defensive nature and denies direct involvement in the conflict, though individual members have supported Ukraine with financial and military aid. Russia continues to cite Nato’s expansion and Ukraine’s membership aspirations as justification for the war.
Zakharova indicated Ukraine should revert to its 1990 sovereignty declaration, which established it as a neutral, non-aligned, and nuclear-free state. Ukraine gained full independence in 1991 and relinquished its nuclear arsenal in 1994 in exchange for sovereignty guarantees from Russia, the US, and Britain.