The United States said on Tuesday it had reached separate agreements with Ukraine and Russia to ensure safe navigation in the Black Sea and to implement a ban on attacks by the two countries on each other’s energy facilities.
The agreements, if implemented, would represent the clearest progress yet towards a wider ceasefire that Washington sees as a stepping stone towards peace talks to bring an end to Russia’s three-year-old war in Ukraine.
Russia, however, said it could not trust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and it could therefore only sign a Black Sea deal if Washington issued an “order” to him to respect it.
“We will need clear guarantees. And given the sad experience of agreements with just Kyiv, the guarantees can only be the result of an order from Washington to Zelensky and his team to do one thing and not the other,” Lavrov said in televised comments.
It was not immediately clear whether Moscow’s demand risked derailing the deal.
Zelensky has previously said Russian President Vladimir Putin, who sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, is not to be trusted over peace moves.
Ukraine’s defence minister said Kyiv had agreed to both a maritime ceasefire and a pause by Russia and Ukraine in attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure.