Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told CBS in an interview broadcast on January 23 that relations between Moscow and Washington are unlikely to improve, even if Donald Trump wins the upcoming 2024 US presidential election.
Former President Donald Trump has previously boasted many times about his good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Lavrov said that the US's general approach to Russia has not changed for decades, and that Washington has itself destroyed relations with Moscow by dismantling all mechanisms to build trust, as well as eroding mutual trust.
The Russian Foreign Minister specifically pointed to former US President George W. Bush's decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) in 2002. The key arms control agreement signed by the US and the Soviet Union in 1972 aims to limit the number of ballistic missiles each side can have and is designed to reduce pressure on the arms race between the two opponents during the Cold War.
Since then, Washington has broken the foundation of bilateral relations with Russia by ending all agreements on strategic stability, equality, mutual trust, supervision and transparency, Lavrov said.
Trump himself contributed to the lifting of one of the few remaining arms control treaties - the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) - which prohibits the two countries from owning any surface-to-surface missile with a range of 500 to 5,500km.
The United States first unilaterally suspended the INF Treaty in February 2019 during Trump's presidency, and later withdrew from the treaty in August of the same year. Russia also suspended the deal in February in response to the initial US move.
According to Mr. Lavrov, Washington has not changed its approach in relations with Moscow. The Russian Foreign Minister said that US leaders have ignored the goodwill that President Putin showed in his first two terms.
In recent months, Mr. Donald Trump has repeatedly declared that he would end the Russia-Ukraine conflict as well as the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Trump has specifically said he can quickly convince both President Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to sit at the negotiations because he knows well both leaders.
Russia denies having held any talks with the former US president on peace with Ukraine. On January 22, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had not had any contact on the issue.
