"We are very close to a meeting between Putin and Zelensky," a US official said, cited by the news portal. Additional trilateral negotiations should be organized before that, the source noted.  "We think those meetings need to happen before a meeting between the leaders. We don't think we are far away from that. If we continue down the current path we will get to that place," he stressed.

Washington believes that trilateral talks of representatives of Russia, the United States and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi "went as well as we could have expected." "We feel good where we are now," another US official told Axios. Trilateral consultations were held in Abu Dhabi on January 23 and 24. (Bssnews)