The denazification of Ukraine is one of the explicitly stated goals of Russia's special operation, but it's probably the vaguest of them all, perhaps even intentionally so in order to give the Kremlin flexibility. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov just elaborated on it in detail though over the weekend during a Q&A session at this year's Antalya Diplomacy Forum. The present piece will review what he said before analyzing it in the context of the ongoing Russian-US talks for ending their proxy war in Ukraine.

Lavrov never once said the word "denazification", but he spent a significant amount of time talking about things that are connected with this goal. The relevant part begins around halfway through his answer to a question about the Kremlin's working relations with the Trump Administration. At some point he brought up how Trump's unofficial Envoy to Russia Steve Witkoff recognized the importance of resolving the territorial dimension of this conflict, which prompted Lavrov to issue an interesting clarification.

In his words, "We are not about territories. We are about people who live on these lands, whose ancestors lived there for centuries, who founded cities like Odessa", which preceded him touching upon how Ukraine has deprived them of their human, linguistic, and religious rights from 2014 onward. He also brought up how Zelensky dehumanized ethnic Russians and recently said how much he hates them. A few words about Ukraine's glorification of Nazi-era collaborators rounded out the rest of his answer.

His interlocutor then told him how Ukraine won't accept anything less than a return to its prewar borders, which Lavrov responded to by saying that "It's not about them accepting. It's about making 100% certain that the people who have been living there for centuries are not deprived of their inherent rights". He then accused the EU of covering up for a Nazi regime and ignoring the human rights situation in Ukraine. Lavrov also said that Russia is restoring these same rights in the regions that voted to join it.

Observers should remember that Russia legally regards the entirety of the four disputed regions as having unified with their historical homeland after September 2022's referenda and that one of the constitutional amendments that were passed in 2020 prohibits ceding any of the country's territory. As can be intuited from Lavrov's de facto elaboration of denazification over the weekend, a large part of this goal has to do with restoring the rights of indigenous Russians that were taken from them by Kiev.

From Russia's legal perspective, it now has direct responsibility for implementing this across all of Donbass (Donetsk and Lugansk), Kherson, and Zaporozhye, but it doesn't yet control the entirety of their territories. That which has already come under its control was achieved via military means while the remainder is being pursued via hybrid military-diplomatic ones of continuing to advance on the ground while holding talks with the US partially centered on ensuring Ukraine's voluntary withdrawal from here.