Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that if the Istanbul agreements were adopted, NATO Article 5 would be applied to Ukraine, but with certain conditions. He said this in an interview with Russian media.

"The guarantees were very simple. In the end, we were ready to make these guarantees extremely serious, as the Ukrainian delegation wanted," the minister said.

At the same time, one of the conditions, according to Lavrov, was that this article, which provides for military assistance from the Alliance in the event of an armed attack, would not apply to Crimea and the Donbas regions.

"It was specifically written down that these security guarantees do not apply to Crimea and Donbas, which, in general, meant that they could not be touched, otherwise no guarantees would be valid," Lavrov explained.

That is, if these territories were attacked, the agreements would be immediately canceled.

In addition, the Istanbul Treaty stipulated that there would be no foreign military bases or exercises involving third countries in Ukraine, "except with the consent of all guarantor countries, including us and China."

Lavrov also said that "the Russian Federation has no faith in Ukraine, and Russia will no longer pause in hostilities under any circumstances." He said that Russia is now fully confident that the "special military operation" should continue.