Russian Federation Council Deputy: Trump's presidency has not improved U.S.-Russia relations yet
Russia's First Deputy of the Federation Council on Defense and Security Committee, Franz Klintsevich, said that the first month of Donald Trump’s presidency did not make any serious ground in the hope to improve Russia-USA relations.
"While I do not see any serious moves towards the improvement of Russian-American relations, in spite of Russia’s sincere desire, as said by Donald Trump, to get along with the United States," Interfax quoted Klintsevich as saying.
"We cannot ignore the precarious situation of the current U.S. President. He is being attacked from all sides and is being forced to play by the old rules, and it seems that he is getting more inclined to do this. In short, my prognosis is not at all optimistic: if only it does not get worse," the deputy noted.
According to the deputy, within a month of Trump’s inauguration, not a single question relating to the prospects of the development of Russian-American relations has been settled. "On the contrary, even more questions have appeared," Klintsevich specified.
However, he believes that this situation was the result of the previous administration’s activities, "which, is to say, they canonized the anti-Russian trend of U.S. foreign policy, and now it will be very difficult to overcome it."
On February 16th, Bloomberg, citing Kremlin sources, reported that the Kremlin instructed the state media to stop praising U.S. President Donald Trump. The order reflects the growing concerns of senior Russian officials that the new U.S. administration will not be as friendly as it was initially thought, the agency said.
A source of the Financial Times in the Kremlin said that the accusations of contacts and affairs with Russia hinder Trump from establishing a new relationship with Moscow. "It looks like a vast anti-Russian campaign in the Western media has made contact with us so toxic that Trump, a leader who was determined to make a new start in U.S. relations with Russia, has now decided to avoid it," an unnamed Kremlin official told the newspaper.
A similar opinion was expressed by President Donald Trump himself. According to him, fake news in the media is significantly hindering the normalization of relations with Russia. "I just want to tell you, the false reporting by the media, by you people, the false, horrible, fake reporting makes it much harder to make a deal with Russia."