MOSCOW, June 16./TASS/. Relations between Moscow and Washington are at their lowest by now, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Tuesday commenting on US Ambassador John Sullivan’s saying that the sentence for Paul Whelan "is not going to have a good impact" on relations between the countries.

"Ties between Russia and the US couldn’t be worse, that’s the way I see it," the senior diplomat said. "Foreign policy services and embassies must focus on a positive agenda and find ways to remove at least part of the problems that have amassed in these relations. We have innumerable problems of a different scope, nature and complexity that must be addressed," he stressed, emphasizing humanitarian problems.

"These are high-profile cases of our fellow countrymen who were arrested in the US, received jail terms and are serving them," Ryabkov explained. "Many of them have health problems. Qualified medical assistance, if any, is rendered only at the insistence of our embassies and consulates," he stressed.

"We have problems with property, with returning the activity of missions abroad to normal in general," the deputy foreign minister stressed. "It is necessary to focus on settling the problems" and to reverse the negative trend in bilateral relations, he emphasized.

On Monday, the Moscow City Court found Whelan guilty of spying against Russia and sentenced him to 16 years in prison. US citizen Paul Whelan, who also holds British, Canadian and Irish citizenship, was detained by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) on December 28, 2018 in Moscow while on an alleged spy mission. A criminal investigation was launched against him on espionage charges carrying a penalty of up to 20 years behind bars.