MOSCOW, May 8 (Itar-Tass) - Human rights activists Lev Ponomarev and Lyudmila Alexeyeva told a press conference in Moscow about their meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday.
“We were telling him the same things, which we are speaking about here, we have an absolutely open position, we told him about the need to prevent Russia from sliding in totalitarianism,” Ponomarev said.
“In the Soviet times the United States was speaking clearly, helped us, but then they took the Soviet Union as an enemy, while Russia is an ally of the U.S., therefore, there are smooth wordings, though they say to us, “we are sympathising with you, you are good fellows,” the human rights activist noted.
Ponomarev added that the meetings between the human rights activists and the U.S. secretaries of state are traditional during their visits in Moscow. “We met with Condoleezza Rice and (Hillary) Clinton,” he said.
On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had the negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.