MOSCOW, March 28. /TASS/. Moscow is ready to consider various venues for talks with Ukraine, including Belgrade, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the Serbian mass media on Monday.
When asked whether Belgrade could host negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations, Lavrov noted that now an agreement has been reached to organize a meeting in Istanbul, "a geographical location, in respect of which the possibilities of both sides coincide."
"We will be ready to consider other venues, including Belgrade," he said.
According to the Russian top diplomat, a potential venue for talks "should be acceptable for both teams." "We held three rounds of offline talks in Belarus. After that, we had a technical break: it was difficult to meet directly, several videoconferences were organized," he went on to say. "I think Belgrade is a perfect city from the point of view of its position and status. It is quite suitable for any talks at any level."
Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who leads the Russian delegation to the talks with Ukraine, wrote on his Telegram channel on Sunday that a regular round on online talks with Ukraine was held on Sunday. The sides, in his words, agreed to meet offline on March 29-30. Later, the Turkish presidential office said after a telephone call between Turkish and Russian Presidents, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin that the two leaders had agreed that the Russian and Ukrainian delegations would meet in Istanbul.
The first round of Russian-Ukrainian talks was held in Belarus’ Gomel region on February 28. The talks lasted for five hours. The second round of talks was held on March 3 in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, in Belarus. The delegations met for the third round of talks on March 7, in the Brest region, also in Belarus. More rounds were held in the online format.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation in response to a request for help by the heads of the Donbass republics. He stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, but aimed to demilitarize and denazify the country, and to defeat nationalist armed units, which are directly responsible for genocide in Donbass.