MOSCOW, October 9. /TASS/. Moscow does not reject intermediary services offered by many countries during talks with Kiev, Director of the Second Department of CIS Countries of the Russian Foreign Ministry Aleksey Polischuk said in an interview with TASS.

"As far as intermediation is concerned, we acted in this role ourselves for eight years, since 2014, assisting talks between Kiev and Donbass on implementation of Minsk Agreements. It has already become clear at present that Kiev was stretching the time all these years and preparing to settle the conflict in Donbass by force. Many countries currently offer their intermediation in talks between Russia and Ukraine. There is no shortage of intermediation services and we do not reject them," the diplomat said.

Russia is ready to talks with Ukraine but will not discuss the choice made by residents of four new regions, Polischuk noted.

Countries interested in being intermediaries in talks between Russia and Ukraine should convince Kiev of halting combat operations, stopping the war and returning to talks, the diplomat said. "We are ready to that but as it has already been stated, we will not discuss the choice of residents of new Russian regions. Kiev authorities should pay respect to their expression of will, otherwise no talks will bear fruit," Polischuk added.