MOSCOW, April 30. /TASS/. There has been no breakthrough in Moscow’s relations with the West amid the coronavirus pandemic, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with RTVI.
"I don’t think that they [relations] have changed. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin does maintain communication with his counterparts in other countries and this kind of contact has always been there as far as areas of mutual interest and mutual benefit are concerned. I don’t think it is right to talk about breakthroughs, everyone is in a rush to speak about a thaw. In this case, it is about crisis cooperation, which has always been there and will continue," Peskov pointed out, when asked how Russia’s relations with the West had changed.
According to him, Putin has held several conversations with US President Donald Trump recently because the oil market situation was complicated and required coordinated actions.
Peskov went on to say that dialogue between Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron had begun before the pandemic. "Perhaps, it is mainly because President Macron has a broad vision of international affairs, so that even before the pandemic he was able to adopt the formula ‘we have many differences but it is not the reason to cut contacts because dialogue is the only way to overcome these differences.’ This position resonates with that of Russia and President Putin," the Kremlin spokesman emphasized.
Peskov said earlier, commenting on relations between Russia and the US, that the two countries were capable of looking beyond strategic differences and maintaining a constructive dialogue when necessary. At the same time, in his words, a trend for Russophobia persists in the United States.