The Kremlin and the State Department at a closed meeting were looking for a compromise on Ukraine

Фото: Depositphotos

Assistant to the President of Russia Vladislav Surkov, who held closed negotiations with the Deputy Head of the US State Department, Victoria Nuland, said that various aspects of the political situation in Ukraine were the subject of negotiations.

“It was a kind of brainstorming to find compromises for the implementation of the Minsk agreements,” Surkov added.

Interestingly, a meeting of high-ranking officials from Russia and the United States was held in the Kaliningrad region.

The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry in the Kaliningrad region, Pavel Mamontov, said that the meeting was organized “in development” of the negotiations between President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov with US Secretary of State John Kerry on December 15 as part of Kerry's visit to Moscow.

“On some sensitive issues, such as constitutional reform [in Ukraine], security and elections, ideas were put forward that could be discussed in the contact group in the Normandy format [Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine],” Surkov said.

State Department spokesman John Kirby stated briefly that the negotiations were constructive.

At the end of last year, the leaders of the so-called “Normandy Four” countries agreed to extend the Minsk agreements until 2016. This document regulates the process of peaceful resolution of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

On Thursday, a tripartite contact group under the auspices of the OSCE held a regular meeting in Minsk, after which the Special Representative of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Martin Saydik, said that Kiev and Moscow still see different decisions differently.

“Our work in Minsk takes place against the backdrop of deteriorating bilateral relations between Russia and Ukraine. This is an indisputable fact. And this fact has an impact on our work,” Sajdik said in Minsk on January 13.