MOSCOW (AA) - Moscow is ready for peace talks with Kyiv without preliminary conditions, Russia's deputy foreign minister said on Friday.

"I can confirm the position, namely that we are open to dialogue, without preconditions. We were ready for this before," Sergey Ryabkov told reporters in Moscow, asked whether Russia had changed its attitude on peace talks with Ukraine.

Ryabkov said the peace talks that started in March this year were broken off on Kyiv's initiative.

"I can definitely express my opinion that if Kyiv is ordered (to do so) by the relevant capitals, then the chances of such dialogue will probably increase," he suggested.

Asked when the US' new ambassador to Moscow, Lynne Tracy, would arrive in Russia, Ryabkov said she first had to be approved by the US Congress before taking the position and that the process could be protracted after the recent midterm elections.

As for cross-inspections under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) agreements, signed between the US and Russia in the early 1990s, Ryabkov said a meeting of the joint consultative commission was expected to take place in Cairo "at the very end of November -- the first week of December."

He said a resumption of inspections would be on the agenda, among other topics, at the meeting, with Moscow also concerned about the US' large nuclear arsenal that does not fall under the terms of the treaty.

"The Americans de facto have at their disposal a significant number of strategic carriers, namely heavy bombers and ballistic missile launchers of submarines," he said, adding that these do not fit the requirements of the treaty.

"That's the problem. There are many other questions, more technical."

The START I treaty was signed in 1991 between the US and USSR at a time when both sides possessed thousands of nuclear warheads. It took effect in 1994.

In 2010, former US President Barack Obama and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a successor agreement, New START, that set a limit of no more than 1,550 deployed warheads and 700 missiles. It also included cross-inspections to verify compliance with the deal.

Elena Teslova/AA