Putin hopes U.S. envoy for Ukraine will keep in touch with all sides constantly
HAMBURG. July 8 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes that the United States special representative for Ukraine will maintain regular contact with Moscow, Kyiv and other sides interested in resolving the Donbas conflict.
"As regards the U.S. participation in the Ukrainian settlement, we talked about it with President Donald Trump and agreed that the U.S. administration would appoint a special representative who will be dealing with the problem on a permanent basis and will be in contact both with Russia and with Ukraine, with all parties interested in a settlement of this conflict," Putin told journalists in Hamburg on Saturday.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appointed Volker, a former U.S. permanent representative to NATO, as a special representative for Ukraine, the secretary of state's spokesperson Robert Hammond said earlier on Friday. Volker will be coordinating the State Department's efforts to settle the conflict in Ukraine.
Volker, born 1962, is an international relations expert, worked as an analyst in the CIA from 1986, and in the Department of State from 1988. In 1998, he was appointed as first secretary of the U.S. mission to NATO; in 2005, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia; and in 2008-2009 Volker served as U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO.
In recent years he worked at the McCain Institute for International Leadership.
The position of the envoy for Ukraine has been created by the State Department for the first time. Previously, Ukrainian issues were the responsibility of assistant secretary of state for European affairs Victoria Nuland.