OREANDA-NEWS. Moscow cannot state serious breakthroughs in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, which took place in Istanbul, said Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation. The Kremlin spokesman also noted that there is still a lot of work to be done. According to him, the positive thing in the past negotiations was that the Ukrainian side began to specifically formulate its proposals, TASS reports.

It is positive that the Ukrainian side has at least begun to formulate concretely and put down on paper what it proposes. So far it has not been possible to do this. This is a positive factor. As for the rest, we cannot yet state anything very promising, any breakthroughs. There is still a very, very long work to be done,” Peskov said.

He added that later the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, would give additional clarifications.

On March 29, another face-to-face round of talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations took place in Istanbul. The meeting, which began at about 11:30 Moscow time in the Dolmabahce Palace, lasted more than three hours in a mode closed to the press.

Following the talks, Medinsky noted that they were constructive. He also announced the main written proposals received from the Ukrainian delegation. In particular, Ukraine promised to refrain from joining military alliances and asked that the final decision on the treaty with the Russian Federation be drawn up at a meeting of heads of state. The condition for such a decision on the part of Kyiv should be the non-interference of the Russian Federation in Ukraine's accession to the EU.