MOSCOW, June 6. /TASS/. The United States and Russia are unlikely to have a more productive relationship in the current atmosphere, US Ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan said in an interview with TASS.
"I hesitate to make a prediction that Russia and the US are never going to have a more productive relationship. What I can’t say is how long it is going to take. In the current atmosphere, it is not happening," he said, when asked if there was a chance that relations between the two countries would get better any time soon.
"It may not be in my lifetime but there will be, I hope, an opportunity for a greater reconciliation, certainly between the peoples and the countries," the envoy noted. "I mean, who would have predicted in 1979 where Soviet-US relations would be in 1989?" Sullivan pointed out.
"There are so many things that our countries, permanent members of the UN Security Council, could be talking about, and it's tragic that we're not. But there are bigger principles at stake. So, for the United States, President Biden has made our position very clear: no business as usual with Russia," the US ambassador stressed.
According to Sullivan, he could not have predicted in June 2021, when the US and Russian presidents held a meeting in Geneva, that relations between the two countries would be where they are now. "One of our standard talking points from both sides, from the Russian side too, was that we have reached a low-point in US-Russia relations in the post-Cold War era," he emphasized.