MOSCOW. June 19 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has thanked the Vietnamese leadership for its balanced position on Ukraine and the desire to facilitate a peaceful settlement of the crisis.
"We are grateful to our Vietnamese friends for their balanced position on the Ukraine crisis and their desire to facilitate the search for practical ways to settle it peacefully. All of this is fully in line with the spirit and nature of our relations," Putin wrote in an article titled Russia and Vietnam: Friendship Tested by Time for the Nhan Dan newspaper, the official publication of the Vietnamese Communist Party Central Committee.
"We have similar assessments of the situation in the Asia-Pacific region. We see Vietnam as a like-minded partner in shaping a new architecture of equal and indivisible Eurasian security on an inclusive and non-discriminatory basis," Putin said.
The article is available on the Kremlin's website.