Kerry, Putin to meet Tuesday

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday in the southern Russian city of Sochi to discuss a range of issues, including Ukraine, Syria and Iran, the U.S. State Department announced Monday.

The trip comes as U.S.-Russian relations flounder at a low unprecedented since the Cold War, as the countries face off over war-torn Ukraine.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that it hoped the visit would “help normalize bilateral relations, upon which much of the world’s stability depends.”

However, the ministry blamed the U.S. for damaging ties through “targeted, unfriendly actions by Washington.”

The United States “unreasonably attributed to Russia responsibility for the Ukraine crisis, which in many ways was provoked by the U.S. themselves,” the Russian ministry said in a statement on its website.

It added: “The Obama administration in 2014 entered into a process of cutting bilateral ties and proclaimed a course to isolate our country on the international arena, demanding support for its confrontational steps from governments that have traditionally followed in Washington’s wake.”

U.S.-Russian relations plummeted from February to April last year when Ukraine’s pro-Russian president was ousted amid a protest movement in Kiev calling for closer ties with the West. Russia’s moves in subsequent weeks and months to annex the Ukrainian region of Crimea and back a violent uprising in Ukraine’s east also weighed on the relationship.

The U.S. State Department said Monday in a statement that Kerry’s upcoming trip was part of an ongoing effort to “maintain direct lines of communication with senior Russian officials and to ensure U.S. views are clearly conveyed.”

Russian state media on Monday cited an undisclosed diplomatic source as saying that, while Kerry’s visit to Russia is “very symbolic,” there is unlikely to be a breakthrough during the talks.

“He has canceled his visit many times, and finally he has decided to come. This meeting will not be a breakthrough, but it will be very important. This visit was long postponed upon his initiative,” state news agency RIA Novosti quoted the source as saying.