Medvedev: Relations between Russia and the U.S. have hit rock bottom
In an interview with the Israeli television station Channel 2, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev stated that relations between Russia and the United States have “hit rock bottom” because of Washington.
“Unfortunately, because of what happened in Ukraine due to efforts of Obama’s administration, these relations [between Russia and the United States] have hit the bottom. They’ve become very low,” the Russian prime minister stated.
According to Medvedev, relations between Russia and the United States are now at a very low point.
“Frankly speaking, when we started contact with a functioning administration, when Obama was elected, I couldn’t imagine that they would reach such an unprecedented low point,” Medvedev stated.
Medvedev noted that the countries had “a longstanding positive working relationship” including the Treaty on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, the settlement of the situation in Iran, etc. “We want these relations to be normal,” Russian Prime Minister stressed.
Medvedev also stated that Russia is not planning to impose new counter-sanctions against the United States or the EU, because they consider such restrictions pointless.
“We are not planning any additional retaliatory measures; recently we have taken all necessary actions,” he said, and recalled that the Russian Federation has placed a ban on food imports and some types of goods from the United States, EU and a number of other countries.
Recently, the United States and Russia have accused each other of violating the treaty on the elimination of medium-range and shorter-range missiles.
Economic sanctions were imposed on Russia in the summer of 2014 because of the annexation of the Crimea and the military conflict in the Donbas.