Russia is ready for any development of events around Ukraine but prefers the peaceful settlement of the conflict with Moscow’s security interests taken into consideration, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with noted US journalist Tucker Carlson, TASS reports.
"In his latest statement, President Putin clearly indicated that we are ready for any eventuality. But we strongly prefer a peaceful solution through negotiations on the basis of respecting legitimate security interest of Russia, and on the basis of respecting the people who live in Ukraine, who still live in Ukraine being Russians, and their basic human rights, language rights, religious rights, having been exterminated by a series of legislations passed by the Ukrainian parliament," the top Russian diplomat said.
"They started long before the special military operation," Lavrov pointed out. "We did not start this war," he added, reiterating that Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly said that "we started the special military operation in order to end the war which Kiev regime was conducting against its own people in the parts of Donbass."
