Berlin talks fail to ease Ukraine tensions

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine continue as they had failed to reach any breakthrough in a day of talks with French and German officials, but Russian experts believe there is still a chance for a diplomatic solution.

Deputy Chief of Staff of Russian Presidential Executive Office Dmitry Kozak told a late-night news conference after Thursday's talks in Berlin that it had not been possible to reconcile Russia and Ukraine's different interpretations of a 2015 agreement aimed at ending fighting between separatists and Ukrainian government forces.

Negotiations of political advisers to the leaders of the Normandy format (Russia, Germany, Ukraine, France) did not bring tangible results, the parties could not overcome differences regarding the interpretation of the Minsk agreements, Kozak said.

Thursday's meeting was the latest one as the previous talks of political advisers to the leaders of the Normandy format countries were held on Jan 26 in Paris. The first face-to-face meeting of representatives of all four countries in more than a year, held at the Elysee Palace, lasted nearly nine hours.

"Today it wasn't possible to overcome these differences,"Kozak said.

Ukraine's envoy Andriy Yermak said there had been no breakthrough, but both sides agreed to keep talking.

On Friday, Ben Wallace, Britain's defense secretary, visited Moscow. His trip came a day after British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss held talks in Moscow, urging Russia to pull back over 100,000 troops amassed near Ukraine and warning that attacking its neighbor would "have massive consequences and carry severe costs".

'Leave now'

As Washington-Moscow tensions are at their highest since the Cold War, on Thursday, US President Joe Biden urged US citizens to leave Ukraine immediately, and warned about potential major conflict with Moscow should US and Russian troops engage each other on the ground.

Russia says it has no plans to attack Ukraine, but wants the West to keep Ukraine out of NATO. It also wants NATO to refrain from deploying weapons there and roll back alliance forces from Eastern Europe－demands flatly rejected by the West.

Russia and Ukraine should try harder to seek a diplomatic solution that will bring peace to Eastern Europe, said Alexander Dynkin, president of the Russian Institute of the World Economy and International Relations. The path to success is long and arduous yet it does exist, while flexibility and creativity are needed on both sides, he said.

He said it is necessary to introduce restriction on military operations along the NATO-Russian borders, and there should be a moratorium on NATO's eastward expansion.

Agencies contributed to this story.