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Policy of containment always prevailed in Russian-US relations, says Kremlin spokesman

He commented on the copy of the telegram written by US diplomat George Frost Kennan sent from Moscow to Washington in 1946, in which Kennan called on the US to choose a tough policy on the USSR

© Mikhail Metzel/TASS photohost agency

MOSCOW, February 16. /TASS/. The relations between Washington and Moscow on the outcomes of the Second World War always varied between containment and direct confrontation, and Russia continues to feel the weight of this ideology, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday during the opening ceremony of a military history library at the Russian Military Historical Society.

He commented on the copy of the telegram written by US diplomat George Frost Kennan sent from Moscow to Washington in 1946, in which Kennan called on the US to choose a tough policy on the USSR. Peskov noted that along with former UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s Fulton Speech in 1946, this telegram formed the basis of US policy on the Soviet Union and Russia.

"Unfortunately, these are not the relations of friendship and partnership. The best-case scenario for us is containment, <…> and the worst-case scenario is direct confrontation. No matter what happens, regardless of resetting and rebooting, regardless of some periods of romanticism in our relations, this ideology of Kennan and Churchill has always dominated, and we have felt it and continue feeling it for our part," Peskov stated.

The Kremlin spokesman told reporters that in some spheres, the dominance of the US is clear, for example, when it comes to the economic sphere. "However, the leadership that decides the fate of other nations and changes political regimes is hegemony, or to be more exact, an attempt at hegemony, because in this sense, this leadership has proven to be inadequate," Peskov stressed.

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