MOSCOW, January 17. /TASS/. US intelligence agencies exerted constant pressure on Russian diplomats during Barack Obama’s presidency, but Moscow hopes the level of confidence between the two countries will grow.
"We regret over the fact that Washington resorted to such methods [exerting pressure diplomats and trying to recruit them] and hope that we will be able to achieve a higher level of mutual confidence and mutual respect in our bilateral relations in the future," Russian presidential spokesman, Dmitry Peskov said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov provided a few examples of pressure and attempts to recruit Russian diplomats at his annual news conference earlier in the day.
According to Peskov, these incidents did take place, but Moscow did not make them public, as it is not an accepted practice.
"However, considering such aggressive unfriendly rhetoric by the outgoing US administration, it would be appropriate to recall that such incidents did take place on numerous occasions," the Kremlin spokesman added. He emphasized that such attempts "indicate that constant pressure has been exerted on the Russian diplomatic missions abroad. Work is constantly underway to gather intelligence, and in a very aggressive fashion at that." "This attests to a rather unfriendly policy towards Russia," Peskov added.