SAN FRANCISCO, November 16. /TASS/. Interest in the situation around Ukraine at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation events in San Francisco has weakened compared to the group’s last year's summit, said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin, who attended the gathering.

"The Ukraine factor, which last year was simply red hot and blamed as almost the sole and main source of all troubles in the food and energy markets, has been more muted this year," the diplomat said in an interview with TASS.

He said that only a small number of countries raised the topic of Ukraine at the meetings.

"I cannot disclose which delegations they were, because this is a closed forum, but only five delegations spoke out - and in most cases in passing - on this subject," Pankin said.

The APEC summit is taking place from November 15-17. The Russian delegation is led by Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk.