MOSCOW, Jan. 28 (TASS) – Russia remains open to truly substantive proposals for a diplomatic settlement of the situation around Ukraine, said Alexey Polishchuk, the head of the Second Department of the CIS countries at the Russian Foreign Ministry.

He said there’s no hope now that the West will change its approach to the Ukrainian settlement.

"The current Kiev leadership are puppets, first of all, of Washington, London and Brussels. They benefit from escalating the Ukrainian crisis, which they are using not only to try to accomplish the goal of inflicting a ‘strategic defeat’ to Russia, but also to implement measures that are aimed at weakening the economies of their competitors from continental Europe, who have been zombified by the ‘Russian threat’ and do not realize the real threats to their security," the diplomat said in an interview with TASS.

"On its part, Russia has always remained open to truly substantive proposals on how to overcome the current crisis through political and diplomatic methods," he said.