Yanukovych's Moscow visit being prepared, date not set yet, says Ukrainian official

Kyiv and Moscow are laying the groundwork for Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's visit to Russia, a presidential adviser and Head of the Main Department on Foreign Relations at the Presidential Administration, Andriy Honcharuk, has said.

"The main task today is to make preparations for the state visit and set the date," Honcharuk said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Friday.

The second half of last year was dedicated to preparations for such a visit, he said.

"Regrettably, this visit did not take place last year due to the schedules, the political schedules, not the personal schedules of the states' leaders. It did not happen not because certain interpretations exist and some agreements are absent," he said.

Yanukovych's February schedule does not include such a visit, but a date could be chosen promptly given the sides' consent, Honcharuk said.

Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said earlier that the president's schedule for February did not include a meeting with Yanukovych either.

A meeting of the Russian and Ukrainian leaders was initially set for January 18, but was subsequently rescheduled, as Putin's aide Yury Ushakov explained, due to "the need for experts to put the finishing touches to the documents expected to be signed during the visit."