Russian President Vladimir Putin at his upcoming meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump will probably seek, as it happened before, to solve the Ukraine issue without having Kyiv at the negotiating table, that's according to U.S. Senator Rob Portman who spoke at the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing June 26.

One of the issues of concern ahead of the Trump-Putin summit Senator Rob Portman named "President Putin asking to make decisions about Ukraine without at the table," which has been the approach the Russian president "has taken in the past," Senator Portman said, addressing U.S. State Department Assistant Secretary on European and Eurasian Policy Wess Mitchell, Voice of America reported.

Mitchell specified that the overall mindset in relations with Russia is that "we keep the door open to constructive dialogue where there are shared areas of interest... " He said that the work toward provision of lethal weapons to Ukrainians with the Obama Administration for six years had been unsuccessful and there had initially been concerns on the issue as regards the Trump Administration, but now the situation changed. "Now the Trump Administration is providing Ukrainians with the means to defend themselves. Wess Mitchell, in turn, noted that the Trump Administration was able to evade the mistakes of the Obama-era "reset" with Russia where the U.S. made unilateral steps toward rapprochement with Russia.

He noted an importance of a broader point on Russia: "It's the increasing pattern of a Russia that abuses the openings early in the administration's term and we've seen that often enough that I think that the U.S. collectively. We stepped back on missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic, we stepped back on promoting democracy in the post-Soviet space and we see the consequences of that," Mitchell said.