UNITED NATIONS, January 23. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov does not believe that the situation around Ukraine would be any different if Donald Trump were elected US President, because the ruining of the foundation of relations between Russia and the United States began under US President George W. Bush.

"I don’t believe that there is any difference, because the drive to ruin the Russian-American relations, the foundation of these relations, including all agreements on strategic stability, parity, mutual trust, inspections, transparency and so on, confidence building <...> all this started to be ruined by President Bush Jr. when he told [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin, 'You know, I am dropping from the ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty,'" Russia’s top diplomat told CBS in an interview, when asked if he thinks any shift would come if President Trump were elected.

On December 13, 2001, the then US president, George W. Bush, notified his Russian counterpart about the US unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty. Six months later, on June 13, 2002, the document expired.