No proposals on new contacts with US negotiators so far — Russian diplomat

MOSCOW, August 20. /TASS/. Russia has not received any proposals on a potential visit to Moscow by US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner but is ready to organize this meeting quite promptly, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. "We are keeping a close eye on Washington’s stance on the Ukrainian settlement. We have not received any concrete proposals regarding new meetings with the American negotiators - evidently, they are now focused on the situation in the Middle East," she said in an interview with the Izvestia daily. "Reports on a potential visit to Moscow by US special presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner periodically surface in the mass media. Naturally, we are ready to organize this meeting quite quickly, but there have been no official requests for that," she added. She recalled that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier that the talks on the Ukrainian settlement need new ideas. "On our part, we are ready to hear Washington’s constructive initiatives. But we stress that any options for ending the crisis around Ukraine must take into account Russia’s interests - there is no sense in discussing Kiev and its European sponsors’ maximalist demands that do not reflect the realities on the ground," she stressed.