MOSCOW, March 13. /TASS/. Having discussed main issues during recent talks, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are now working to give them a legal shape, Ukrainian presidential office adviser Mikhail Podolyak said in an interview with Russia’s Kommersant daily.
"As soon as there are mutual legal frameworks, a meeting will be scheduled, the fourth round of talks. It may happen tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow," he said. "So far, there is no need to just meet and negotiate. We have discussed all issues, and are now trying to pack them into some legal formats."
According to the Ukrainian official, the matter of compensation of losses sustained by Ukraine should be among the issues mentioned in the tentative list of questions.
"Compensation mechanisms must be defined clearly: who, whose budget will bear the burden," he said.
Podolyak did not rule out that third states, involved in the Ukrainian situation "directly or indirectly," will participate in signing this document.
"They are ready to sit at the negotiating table at any moment, and to literally join the work, the signing of the tentative final document immediately. I don’t see any problems about that," Podolyak said.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation in response to a request for help by the heads of the Donbass republics. He stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, but aims to demilitarize and denazify the country. The first Russian-Ukrainian talks to settle the situation took place in the Gomel Region on February 28 and lasted five hours. The second round took place in Belovezhskaya Pushcha on March 3.
The third round of Russian-Ukrainian talks, which were held in Belarus on March 7, didn’t bring the desired results, representatives of both Moscow and Kiev said. Both sides expressed their readiness to continue negotiations and noted positive developments in the issue of humanitarian corridors. The sides haven’t yet announced the date and place of the next meeting, but, according to a member of the Russian delegation, State Duma Committee on International Affairs Chairman Leonid Slutsky, it will be held in Belarus in the near future.