MOSCOW. June 8 (Interfax) - Washington's policy toward Kyiv is not having the necessary effect on Ukraine in order to get it to honor the Minsk Agreements, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.
"It is an inevitable element of American-Ukrainian attempts to demonstrate their high level of mutual understanding. We do not see anything new or surprising here, anything that would change the overall picture, the overall lineup," Ryabkov told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday, when commenting, among other matters, on Washington's statements on Monday following a phone conversation between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
"It does not matter in what format the leaders of these countries are meeting. The substance of the U.S.' policy toward Ukraine is clear to us. This policy is having no effect on Kyiv in order to ensure at least minimum compliance by Ukraine with the Minsk Package of Measures. Regrettably, efforts to instill the idea in the consciousness of the Biden administration that this path has no alternative have not been successful thus far," Ryabkov said.
"Therefore, we assume that tensions caused by this irresponsible policy will persist. And who and when meets at the level of leaders is secondary. First, it is necessary to change the substance of the approach," he said.