Russia’s Mail.ru Group may within months take over Ukrainian domain mail.ua to promote its mail and other services for Ukrainian-language audiences, portal UNOVA reports, citing a Kommersant source.

The seller is reported to be Ukraine’s Internet Invest Group (IIG); preliminary agreements are said to have been made.

According to Internet Invest Group president Alexander Olshansky, talks continue over possible joint projects and the integration of services. A Mail.ru Group spokesman added that his firm was eyeing the broader CIS markets.

Mail.ru Group is a co-owner in a number of resources, including social networks Odnoklassniki (100%), My World (100%), In Contact (39.99%) and Facebook (2.28%); instant message exchangers ICQ (100%) and Mail.ru Agent; paying service Qiwi (21.35%); game maker Zynga (1.3%); discounter Groupon (4.44%); HeadHunter.ru (97.2%); and some others.

Revenue in the first six months of this year came in at $228.2m. The main owners are South Africa’s Naspers (29%) and New Media and Technology Investment owned by Russian tycoon Alisher Usmanov (25.33%).

Mail.ru Group has been in the Ukrainian market since 2009, now owning marketing firm Mail.ru and game developer Dark Joker. With the deal successfully closed its Kiev office will become a full-scale rep office, said a source with knowledge of Mail.ru Group plans.

Mail.ru is one of Ukraine’s most popular websites. It offers Ukrainian visitors their local news, cultural events, weather forecasts, currency exchange rates, and other things. According to Gemius, in September 2011 Mail.ru’s Ukrainian audiences totaled 7.26 million visitors, up 33.4% y/y.

There’s a separate mail server, Mail.ua, with as many as 500,000 registered users, Mr. Olshansky said. According to top.bigmir.net, its audiences totaled 111,000 visitors in October.