Putin's Aide, US Special Envoy for Ukraine Likely to Meet in Minsk

The meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin's aide Vladislav Surkov and US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker most likely will be held in Minsk, Belarus, a political expert close to the Kremlin said Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – On August 6, US State Secretary Rex Tillerson said that Kurt Volker would visit Russia soon.

"The meeting between Vladislav Surkov and Kurt Volker will most likely take place in Minsk," Alexey Chesnakov, the director of the Center for current policy (CCP), wrote on his Facebook page, adding that the date of the meeting would be agreed in the coming days.

According to Chesnakov, initially Washington suggested to meet in Vienna, while Moscow proposed to hold the meeting in Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad, but in the end both sides reached a compromise on meeting in Minsk.

Volker was appointed US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations in early July soon after Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump met in Hamburg. Volker paid his first visit to Kiev on July 9, during which he and Tillerson held a meeting with the Ukrainian leadership.

The international community, including Russia, Germany and France, has been taken a number of steps aimed at settling the crisis in the southeastern Ukraine. The conflict has been ongoing since 2014, when the new government in Kiev came to power after what many considered to be a coup.