Zakharova said that Russia is ready for talks with Ukraine

Russia is ready for effective and productive negotiations on Ukraine.

This was stated by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

“Without a doubt, we are open, as the Russian leadership has always emphasized, to a negotiation process and to contacts that will have a real effect and a real result,” she said.

The diplomat added that the Russian side has not refused to engage in negotiations.

Recently, the head of the Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, said that the pause in peace talks on Ukraine is linked to the unwillingness of Western countries to finally achieve a settlement of the conflict.

Earlier, it was reported that Kyiv sees as one possible way to end the fighting a halt along the current line of contact, without legal recognition of the lost territories and with the possible accession of Ukraine to the European Union.