MOSCOW, July 7. /TASS/. Russia does not regard the United States as a partner who is able to negotiate and lost trust in Washington as a contractor, but there is the need to start restoring it by small steps, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Izvestiya TV on Monday.

The senior diplomat noted that over the past years the United States had chosen "the path of consistently dismantling various structures and mechanisms, which were in the relations between Moscow and Washington." Lately, the US has sent treaties and agreements into the dustbin of history. "This is a regrettable development," Ryabkov said.

"We don’t view the US as a partner who is able to negotiate. We lost trust in Washington as a contractor and probably, there is the need to start gradually restoring it and this needs to be done by the tactics of small steps," the deputy foreign minister noted.

On July 6, the delegates of the member-states of the Open Skies Treaty held a video conference to discuss the impact of the United States’ withdrawal and the treaty’s future after that. Russia was represented at this event by Ryabkov.