He stated this in an interview with the Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet.Lavrov repeated the Kremlin's narrative about events since 2014, claiming that Ukraine began to "persecute and kill" Russians and Russian speakers. He reiterated common Kremlin statements about the events of the Revolution of Dignity, Crimea, and Donbas.According to Lavrov, after 2014, the Kyiv regime allegedly declared war on the Russian language and culture. He claimed that laws were passed that banned the use of Russian in education, science, culture, media, advertising, and everyday life, and that ethnic Russians who refused to abandon their traditions were subjected to total discrimination.He added that "forced Ukrainization" allegedly affected other ethnic groups as well, including Hungarians, Romanians, Poles, Bulgarians, Armenians, Belarusians, and Greeks.Lavrov also stated that NATO "is no longer a defensive alliance" and emphasized that NATO's presence in Ukraine and its inclusion in the alliance posed a direct threat to Russia's national security. He claimed this led the Kremlin to initiate the "special military operation."“This situation was unacceptable to us. Therefore, at the end of 2021, we requested security guarantees from the U.S. and NATO, without altering Ukraine's neutral status. Our initiative was rejected. The West continued to 'pump' Ukraine with weapons to force a resolution to the Donbas and Crimea issues. Ultimately, we had no choice but to launch a special military operation. I am convinced that any country that respects itself would have acted the same way in this situation,” Lavrov concluded.Lavrov also claimed that Russia is allegedly open to diplomatic settlement of the war against Ukraine. However, he emphasized that Russia is not satisfied with the pause, which could allow Ukraine to regroup its forces.