The Ukrainian conflict will end with an agreement, but its criteria will be determined by the stage of military actions during which it will be signed, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, RIA Novosti reported.

According to him, Russia positively accepted Ukraine's proposals for an agreement reached during the Istanbul talks, but then the United States influenced Kyiv to change its position.

"For the first time in Istanbul, we received proposals from them on paper, signed by the head of their delegation, and we were ready to accept those proposals as a basis. They would have been reviewed in order to be consensual, but we evaluated them positively. These proposals were not in the form of a contract, but in the form of outlines, main provisions, and theory. We quickly transferred these theories to the contract genre and handed over the project to our Ukrainian colleagues. At that time, they presented their counter-ideas to us, which were radically different from what was done in Istanbul," the Russian FM added. According to him, this was a big step back in the negotiations with Ukraine, which was made on the advice of "American and British partners."

"A week ago, after another videoconference, we gave them another updated version of the contract, which had already taken into account their further comments, as usual, and now we are waiting for a week," Lavrov said.

He noted that after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's words that he did not see the proposal of the Russian Federation, the Russian side again asked the Ukrainian negotiators how it happened, and they answered: "Yes, he did not seem to have time, for a very long time."

"This shows once again how he [i.e., Zelenskyy] treats the talks when he pathetically declares that he always prefers peace," the Russian FM added.