U.S. State Department: Meeting in Minsk on Aug 26 is a positive step

The meeting of the Customs Union member states with Ukraine and the EU is a necessary dialogue, Harf noted answering the question about the attitude of the United States to it.

"A dialogue is certainly needed in this situation because the conflict should be settled peacefully. However, Russia’s statements should be proved by actions so we still need to see what results the meeting will bring,” she said and added that all the sides of the conflict should ‘prove their statements by actions’.

Nevertheless, she mentioned Russia separately as the Russian Federation ‘is the only side sending weapons and militants to another country’s territory’ so ‘they are to blame for escalating the conflict’, BelaPAN quotes Harf.