MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Wednesday that relations with the United States were at a historic low, but that the Kremlin was open to dialogue and would see what happens if Donald Trump returns to the White House in January.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was not aware of any plans by President Vladimir Putin to congratulate Trump who has declared he had won the U.S. election.
“Let’s not forget that we are talking about an unfriendly country that is directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state,” he said, referring to U.S. support for Ukraine.
Asked if relations would get even worse if Putin declined to congratulate Trump, he said: “It is almost impossible to worsen them further, relations are at their historically lowest point. What happens next will depend on the next U.S. leadership.
“President Putin has repeatedly said that he is open to constructive dialogue based on fairness and equality, and a willingness to take each other’s concerns into account…
“At the moment, the U.S. administration is diametrically opposed, and what will happen in January – we will see.”
Peskov said Trump had made tough statements during the election campaign but that he had also spoken of breaking the spiral of “continuing old wars and unleashing new ones”.
Russia would watch to see if Trump changed his tone when preparing to enter the Oval Office, Peskov said. “Therefore, we say that we carefully analyse everything, monitor everything, and will draw conclusions based on specific words and specific steps,” he said.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Anastasia Teterevleva and Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
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