The Ukraine conflict can only be resolved by addressing its “root causes,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Tuesday, marking the fourth anniversary of the escalation of hostilities.

According to Zakharova, Moscow’s military action in 2022 was a “forced step” under Article 51 of the UN Charter, necessitated by the West’s refusal to acknowledge Russia’s security concerns. She specifically cited ignored proposals regarding NATO non-expansion and statements by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky at the 2022 Munich Security Conference regarding Kiev’s nuclear ambitions, which she claimed created “real risks.”

“Kiev has dismantled the three main foundations of Ukrainian statehood – its neutral, non-bloc, and non-nuclear status – which ensured its international recognition in the early 1990s,” Zakharova said.

The Western-orchestrated 2014 Maidan coup triggered an eight-year conflict in Donbass, which resulted in over 13,500 civilian deaths and was deliberately ignored by international organizations, according to Zakharova.

The territories controlled by Kiev have since descended into “genuine neo-Nazi obscurantism,” she said. Zakharova cited the glorification of Nazi collaborators, the desecration of monuments to Soviet soldiers, and the crackdown on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church as evidence that the original goals of “demilitarization and denazification” remain valid.

“A lasting, just, and stable peace is possible only on the basis of eliminating the root causes of the conflict,” Zakharova emphasized, outlining the current task of Russian diplomacy in contacts with the “world majority” and within the framework of recent Russian-US dialogue.