US-Russia ties worse than during Cold War: Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the bilateral relations between Russia and the United States are now even worse than during the Cold War due to a lack of mutual respect.

“During the Cold War, the tensions were flying high, and risky crisis situations often emerged, but there was also a mutual respect,” Lavrov said in a Russian state television interview on Wednesday. “It seems to me there is a deficit of it now.”

The top Russian diplomat expressed Moscow’s readiness to normalize ties with Washington but said the US had to stop posturing like a “sovereign” while rallying its allies against Russia and China.

Lavrov also warned that the two sides “would live in conditions of a cold war or worse” if the US administration avoided mutually respectful dialog on the basis of a balance of interests.

Elsewhere in the interview, Lavrov said Moscow had a “positive” attitude towards the US President Joe Biden’s proposal to hold a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but added that Russia needed to analyze all aspects of the initiative.

Moscow recently announced that the time and venue of a potential meeting between the two presidents remained unclear and largely hinged on Washington’s behavior.

The Russian FM said on Wednesday that he would be ready to meet with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken if his American counterpart joined a meeting of top diplomats of the Arctic nations in Iceland scheduled for next month.

Earlier on Wednesday, Lavrov said Russia would soon publish a list of governments deemed “unfriendly” to the Russian state, following a decree by Putin to clearly identify and take countermeasures against such countries.

Relations between the United States and Russia have been strained over allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections as well as the Ukrainian conflict.

Ties between the two Cold War foes hit a new low last month after Biden said in an interview that he believed Putin was a “killer” and that the Russian president would have to “pay a price” for interference in the 2020 US presidential election.

Russia has denied the accusations of interference in US elections. After Biden’s offensive remark, Moscow recalled the Russian ambassador to Washington for consultations, even though the Russian president himself took the comment dismissively.

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