Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov used an interview with Hungary’s nationalist daily Magyar Nemzet on 7 July to spell out Moscow’s terms for ending the war in Ukraine. He insisted that any accord must be a legally binding peace treaty rather than a temporary cease-fire and said Russia “has always been and remains open” to negotiations that deliver a durable settlement. Lavrov listed conditions that include Ukraine’s permanent neutrality and non-alignment, its “demilitarisation and denazification”, and the lifting of all Western sanctions and legal claims against Russia. He also demanded international recognition of what he called the “new territorial realities” — Crimea, Sevastopol and the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions as part of the Russian Federation. The minister argued that the conflict cannot be resolved without removing what Moscow sees as the root causes, chiefly NATO’s eastward expansion and Kyiv’s policies toward Russian-speaking populations. He rejected a mere pause in hostilities, saying such a lull would allow Ukraine and its backers to regroup militarily. Lavrov simultaneously courted Budapest, praising Hungary’s “pragmatic course” despite pressure from Brussels and NATO and urging cooperation in “defending” ethnic minorities in Ukraine, including Hungarians. His remarks come as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government continues to block aspects of EU support for Kyiv and stalls Ukraine’s accession talks, underscoring the Kremlin’s effort to widen political divisions within the European Union.