Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart agreed on Sunday that a political solution was needed for Ukraine and said they planned to continue discussing ways to de-escalate the crisis over the country’s future and Russia ’s annexation of Crimea. But neither side claimed a breakthrough, and Russia did not commit to pulling back the more than 40,000 troops the United States says are massed near Ukraine’s border. “Both of us recognize the importance of finding a diplomatic solution and simultaneously meeting the needs of the Ukrainian people, and that we agreed on tonight,” Mr. Kerry told reporters after meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov. In a separate news conference, Mr. Lavrov said he and Mr. Kerry had agreed to work on securing the rights of minorities and “linguistic rights” in Ukraine, which has a large ethnic Russian population. The treatment of […]