UNITED NATIONS, January 24. /TASS/. The level of relations between Moscow and Washington is currently low as the parties maintain almost no contact, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference following his participation in UN Security Council events.

"The level is low and the low point has been hit. There is almost no contact except for the operation of our diplomatic missions in the US and the work of their diplomats in Russia," he noted.

"Still, a lot of attempts are made to make one-sided gains and accuse us of some steps even though they [the Americans] are well aware that the diplomatic presence issue emerged following a decision that [then-US President Barack] Obama made in December 2016, three weeks before [next US President Donald] Trump’s inauguration. The outgoing Democratic administration made a gift to us, kicking out our diplomats and their family members - a total of 120 people - of Washington. They did it in the noble American style, setting the deadline for them to leave in a period when there was no direct flight from Washington to Moscow," Lavrov added. According to him, the Russian diplomats and his families had to take a long bus ride to New York to take a flight to Moscow.

"We did not respond to that for a while, because after Trump had taken office, his administration asked us not to react," Lavrov went on to say. "The principle of reciprocity is still there <...> and we gave a tit-for-tat response, asking the same number of US diplomats to leave Russia" in the summer of 2017, he noted.

When asked about the possibility of freezing relations with the US, Lavrov stressed that relations were almost non-existent.