MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/. The Russian authorities will react to the practical steps the incoming U.S. Administration will be making, not to the declarations the contents of which often stem from transitory calculus, Frants Klintsevich, first deputy chairman of defense and security committee in the upper house of Russian parliament said on Wednesday.
He said it in a comment on the statements that the nominated Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, made earlier on the same day in the course of hearings in the U.S. Senate.
Specifically, Tillerson said he was ready to support the proposals to furnish Ukraine with lethal weaponry and spoke in favor of keeping up sanctions against Russia. In addition, he said the U.S. should step up broadcasting spearheaded at Russia.
"Such statements don’t make one feel particularly optimistic but we’ve got accustomed to reacting to practical steps rather than words," Klintsevich said, adding that the Senate committee Tillerson was addressing expected the declarations of precisely that kind of him.
"Quite possibly, we should take account of the fact he said this answering specific questions at the Senate foreign policy committee, the members of which expected this type of assessments from him," the senator said.
As he mentioned a possible reaction from Moscow, Klintsevich said the Russian authorities were prepared to make steps towards meeting the U.S. halfway. "But to make steps towards the opposite party doesn’t mean to align oneself with it, to agree to one-sided concessions or to cede one’s positions," he said. "On the fundamental plane, we don’t have any grounds to revise our international policy or to scale down efforts as regards the maintenance of our own security," he said.