The Kremlin, asked Wednesday about contacts with the administration of President Donald Trump over Ukraine, said that there have been contacts at the ministerial level and they have been intensifying recently.

Russia welcomes Trump's view that drawing Ukraine towards the NATO military alliance was an issue of concern to Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Trump said in January that he sympathized with the Russian position that Ukraine should not be part of NATO and blamed outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden for allegedly changing the U.S. position on NATO membership for Ukraine.

"Suddenly, for the first time, President Trump, in one of his first speeches, criticizing the position of the administration of Biden on the Ukrainian crisis, bluntly said that one of the main mistakes was drawing Ukraine into NATO," Lavrov said.

"For the first time the problem of NATO was identified as something that the United States is ready to discuss seriously," Lavrov said.