MOSCOW, June 21. /TASS/. Moscow hopes that Washington will take into account that civil war is ongoing in Ukraine during the discussion on supplies of lethal weapons to Kiev, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.

"We hope that Washington (while deciding on supplies of lethal arms to Kiev) won’t forget that Ukraine is a country where civil war is continuing," Peskov told reporters.

The Kremlin spokesman noted that the issue of military and technical cooperation between Washington and Kiev is "an absolutely domestic affair of the two countries - Ukraine and the United States."

In comments to Washington’s statements that the US wants Russia to leave Ukraine’s east, Peskov noted that there are no Russian forces in Donbass. "Russia is not present on the territory of Donbass, that’s why we consider that such words are inappropriate and wrong," he stressed.

The Russian presidential spokesman refused to comment on a brief meeting on June 20 between US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Pyotr Poroshenko, saying that this is a matter of Ukrainian and US political experts. "We would welcome if these contacts resulted in Kiev’s receiving a signal on the need to implement the Minsk agreements."