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Foreign Ministry: Russia is interested more than others in resolving the crisis in Ukraine

"We are more than others interested in not letting this issue stay on the conflict stage in resolving it and moving to its settlement for many reasons," Zakharova said

MOSCOW, November 21. /TASS/. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has rejected the assumption that the situation in Syria overshadowed the crisis in Ukraine for Russia pushing that conflict into the background.

"It is very common concept today that the Syrian events come to the forefront and everyone forgets Ukraine and it is Russia which is interested in it, first and foremost. I would like to tell you that every week we deliberately bring the Ukrainian topic on the agenda for discussion regardless of questions of journalists. The Contact Group, which includes a Russian representative, meets almost on a daily basis," the diplomat said in a TV interview on Saturday.

"We are more than others interested in not letting this issue stay on the conflict stage in resolving it and moving to its settlement for many reasons," she said.

"This is certainly the proximity of the two countries, closeness of the two nations. This is a huge number of refugees, displaced persons, people who came from the Ukraine to Russia," Zakharova said.

"Obviously, that is the matter of implementation of the Minsk agreements which, on the one hand, should serve as the basis for co-existence of the different parts of Ukraine as a single state. On the other hand, this is a condition, far-fetched, of course, and we all understand, but these are conditions which let Europeans prolong the sanctions. That is why Ukraine is a very important issue for us," the diplomat said.