by Our Foreign Desk

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet US Secretary of State John Kerry in Sochi today.

The statesmen will reportedly discuss the wars in Ukraine, Syria and Yemen in the Black Sea coastal city that played host to the Winter Olympics.

State news agency RIA-Novosti quoted a diplomatic source expressing Russian hopes that Mr Kerry would bring new proposals for peace in Ukraine.

The US State Department confirmed the meeting later yesterday. Mr Kerry will then fly to Turkey for a meeting of Nato foreign ministers.

Talks could mark a crucial step back from the brink by the US after two years of confrontation with Russia.

The Interfax news agency reported an unnamed Russian official as saying that the issue of the US supplying arms and training to Kiev would be raised at the meeting.

Moscow and Washington have been at loggerheads over the former Soviet republic of Ukraine since the beginning of last year, when the US and its Nato allies backed violent protests ending in the removal of president Viktor Yanukovich.

The new regime, which initially appointed members of far-right parties as ministers, wants to forge closer ties with the European Union and Nato.

More than 8,000 people have been killed in the ensuing civil war between Kiev’s militias and separatist forces in the Russian-speaking east of the country.

Other issues include ­Russia’s decision to sell the state-of-the-art S-300 air defence missile system to Iran and Syria, where the US has promised military training to insurgents trying to overthrow the Russian-allied government.