Russia’s Zakharova Says Ukraine Peace Hinges on Unresolved Root Causes

(MENAFN) Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova used the fourth anniversary of the full-scale escalation of the Ukraine conflict Tuesday to insist that any durable resolution must address what Moscow characterizes as the war's underlying causes — framing the 2022 military offensive as a legally justified act of self-defense.

In a formal statement, Zakharova argued that Russia's intervention was a "forced step" sanctioned under Article 51 of the UN Charter, driven by the West's repeated dismissal of Moscow's security demands. She pointed specifically to what she described as NATO's refusal to rule out eastward expansion and remarks made by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky at the 2022 Munich Security Conference concerning Kyiv's nuclear ambitions — comments she said introduced "real risks" into the security landscape.

"Kiev has dismantled the three main foundations of Ukrainian statehood – its neutral, non-bloc, and non-nuclear status – which ensured its international recognition in the early 1990s," Zakharova said.

Zakharova further claimed that the Western-backed change of government in Kyiv in 2014 ignited an eight-year armed conflict in the Donbass region resulting in over 13,500 civilian deaths — a toll she alleged was deliberately overlooked by international bodies. Territories under Kyiv's control, she added, had descended into "genuine neo-Nazi obscurantism," citing the elevation of wartime Nazi collaborators, the removal of monuments honoring Soviet soldiers, and restrictions on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church as justification for Russia's stated war aims of "demilitarization and denazification."

"A lasting, just, and stable peace is possible only on the basis of eliminating the root causes of the conflict," Zakharova emphasized, outlining the current task of Russian diplomacy in contacts with the "world majority" and within the framework of recent Russian-US dialogue.

The statement arrives against a backdrop of intensifying diplomatic activity. Russia, the United States, and Ukraine held multiple rounds of talks in Geneva, Switzerland last week, following earlier meetings in Abu Dhabi in January. Territorial disputes — chiefly Kyiv's refusal to relinquish its claims to the Donbass — are reported to be the central sticking point blocking any breakthrough.

The regions at the heart of the standoff include Crimea, which Moscow incorporated following a 2014 referendum that Kyiv and Western governments have rejected as illegitimate. The Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics subsequently declared independence in the wake of that year's political upheaval. All four territories — Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson — were formally annexed by Russia in late 2022 following referendums that Moscow claims reflected the will of local populations, but which Ukraine and its allies have refused to recognize.

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