MOSCOW, June 22. /TASS/. Russian senators have not received any proposals from their South African colleagues on peace talks with Ukrainian lawmakers but are ready to discuss specific ideas, Konstantin Kosachev, Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council (the upper house of parliament), told TASS.

"We haven’t received any proposals of this kind from other parliaments <...>. As soon as there are specific ideas and initiatives, we will discuss them," the senator said, commenting on a report by South Africa’s parliament, which had expressed readiness to host such negotiations.

Kosachev also pointed out that the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s working group on promoting efforts to resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was engaged in similar activities. "We maintain working contact with the group but our parliamentary partners have not yet been able to adopt any specific approaches on that platform," Kosachev noted.

The Federation Council’s deputy speaker recommended that lawmakers from other countries "focus on Ukraine, who derailed the previous talks and has been refusing to resume them with a persistence worthy of a better cause".

South Africa’s News24 media outlet said earlier on Thursday, citing a parliamentary report, that the country’s parliament was ready to host peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian lawmakers. According to Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, South African National Assembly speaker and the author of the report, the idea is to send messages to Russian and Ukrainian lawmakers, proposing venues for a meeting between the two that could discuss issues related to nuclear and food security, the protection of environmentally sensitive facilities and prisoner exchanges.