John Kerry arrives in Kiev

Baku. 5 February. REPORT.AZ/ US Secretary of State John Kerry is beginning his official visit to Kiev on Thursday to discuss the pace of economic reforms and ways to deescalate the situation in eastern Ukraine with Ukraine’s top officials, Report informs citing TASS.

The US secretary of state plans to meet with Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and Ukrainian lawmakers.

Some details of Kerry’s visit to Ukraine were revealed at a recent regular briefing by US Department of State spokesperson Jen Psaki. She said the Secretary of State had been in Ukraine a year ago. "I expect he’ll talk with them about the progress they /the Ukrainians -TASS have made and needs to continue to make over the coming months," she said. "He’ll meet, as I mentioned, with a range of officials and also talk about how we can continue to work together to de-escalate the situation on the ground."

Kerry’s visit is taking place on the backdrop of the aggravation of the conflict between Ukraine’s army and self-defense forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DRP and LPR) and media reports about the Barack Obama administration’s looking at supplying Kiev with lethal weapons.