MOSCOW, October 25. /TASS/. Political forces in the United States are trying to use Ukraine to achieve their own goals, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Friday at a meeting with the participants in the annual scientific and educational program "Dialogue in the Name of the Future" of the Alexander Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund.

"Everything that has been going on recently around US-Ukrainian contacts cannot be considered otherwise than another attempt to use external circumstances for domestic political purposes," he said. "We see similar symptoms in US attempts to persuade its allies, which defer to Washington’s opinion, that Russia will make attempts to meddle in their domestic affairs."

Ryabkov stressed that such accusations had nothing to do with reality. "We have proposed more than once to discuss such issues in a calm and professional atmosphere. There are specialists who understand better than diplomats what the use of information and communication technologies for illegal and unacceptable purposes means," he added.

On September 24, the US House of Representatives controlled by the Democratic Party announced the launch of impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. The move came after reports emerged in the media that Trump had allegedly attempted to pressure his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky to take actions, which would help the incumbent US president to get reelected for a second term in 2020.