ATHENS

Russian "imperialism" is the cause of war in Ukraine, the Czech foreign minister said, as US-led efforts to end the three-year-long war continue.

Referring to Russian response to the US proposal for peace in Ukraine, Jan Lipavsky maintained that President Vladimir Putin did not back down from a single demand.

“Let's not forget that at the start of the invasion he (Putin) demanded that NATO stop deploying weapons in member states that joined after 1997," he said, speaking at the NATO air base in Keflavik while on a working visit to Iceland on Thursday.

Lipavsky stressed that any ceasefire must be backed by security guarantees for Ukraine.

Putin on Thursday said he agreed with US proposals for a ceasefire in Ukraine, but stressed that any truce would have to deal with the root causes of the conflict.

Ukraine supported a 30-day ceasefire with Russia following talks with US officials in the Saudi city of Jeddah earlier this week.

Russia started it war in February 2022 for “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine. It has often called for Ukraine’s non-NATO as one of the preconditions to end the war.