17 June 2021, Thursday, 18:30 183

Presidential Office Not Upset By Cursory Discussion By Putin And Biden Of Ukraine's Prospects In NATO And Absence Of Nord Stream-2 Issue In Negotiations

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

The Office of the President is not upset by the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin and the United States President Joe Biden, at the talks in Geneva (Switzerland) on June 16, briefly touched on the topic of Ukraine's prospects in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the issue of the Russian project to build a gas pipeline bypassing Ukraine Nord Stream-2 was not discussed at all.

Mykhailo Podoliak, advisor to the head of the Presidential Office Andrii Yermak, announced this to Ukrainian News Agency.

"As for NATO - since the Russian Federation does not and cannot have the right of veto on Ukraine's accession to NATO, this topic can hardly be discussed in detail at bilateral meetings between the United States and Russia. As for Nord Stream-2, negotiations on this the issue is taking place in formats with the participation of Germany. The German side was not present at the summit in Geneva," he said.

Podoliak explained a little attention to Ukraine during the negotiations between the leaders of the United States and the Russian Federation by the fact that the summit was announced as an introductory one after the change of the American Administration and therefore it was not expected from it to solve complex global issues.

"In our country, many persons like to evaluate not reality, but only their expectations, experiences or ideas about reality when they talk about such summits. This is wrong. You need to evaluate the facts, or at least try to look at the real world. The course of the summit confirms that the parties only briefly fixed their positions on key issues and did not delve into their discussion as much as necessary to make some decisions," he said.

At the same time, according to him, the Presidential Office is satisfied with the result of the discussion between Biden and Putin of the Minsk Agreements, since it believes that the statements of the American head of state on this topic correspond to the interests of Ukraine.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, Putin and Biden agreed on the mutual return of ambassadors.