Security guarantees for Ukraine should be result, not condition of settlement - Russian Foreign Ministry

MOSCOW. Aug 29 (Interfax) - Security guarantees for Ukraine should be a result, not a condition of the peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis, with due account of Russia's interests, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.

"One needs to understand that the provision of security guarantees is not a condition but a result of peaceful resolution through the elimination of root causes of the crisis in Ukraine," Zakharova said at a press briefing on Friday.

"In turn, that will also guarantee security for our country," she said.

The settlement "should include, among other things, demilitarization, denazification, a neutral, non-aligned and nuclear-free status of Ukraine, the recognition of territorial realities, the provision of rights of ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking residents, and the end of persecution of canonical Orthodoxy," she said.

"Therefore, security guarantees should rest upon a common understanding, which takes Russian security interests into account," Zakharova said.

The scenarios and options of security guarantees for Ukraine currently discussed by the West "are one-sided and obviously aim to deter Russia," while the authors of such ideas are on the path of drawing Ukraine into NATO, she said.

"This course violates the principle of indivisible security, secures Kiev's role of a strategic provocateur on the Russian border, and raises the risk of the alliance's involvement in an armed conflict with our country," Zakharova said.