Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday that Russia will be open to talks with Kyiv as soon as Ukrainian forces surrender.
CNBC reported Friday that Lavrov said “we are ready for talks any time, as soon as the Ukrainian armed forces respond to the call of our president, stop resisting and surrender their weapons” during a meeting with officials from the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic.
“No one is going to attack or oppress them, let them go back to their families,” Lavrov added, according to Russian news agency Interfax.
CNN reporter Matthew Chance said that Friday morning he was invited to a press conference call with Sergey, where he asked him if it was Russia’s intention to “decapitate” Ukraine and replace it with a “puppet regime controlled by Moscow.”
According to Chance, Lavrov said that “nobody is going to attack the people of Ukraine” and that there will be “no strikes on civilian infrastructure.”
“I will stress: read what Putin said. No strikes on civilian infrastructure, no strikes on the personnel of the Ukrainian army, on their dormitories, or other places not connected to the military facilities. The statistics that we have confirm this,” Lavrov said to CNN.
“Nobody is going to somehow degrade the Ukrainian Armed Forces. We are talking about preventing Neo-Nazis and those promoting genocide from ruling this country,” he added.
“The current regime in Kyiv is under two external control mechanisms. First, the West and the United States. And second, neo-Nazis,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Thursday that the death toll hit 137 with over 300 wounded after less than one day of Russia’s full-scale invasion by land, sea, and air. The death toll includes both civilians and soldiers, according to Zelenskyy.