MOSCOW. Feb 9 (Interfax) - Russian-U.S. relations have found themselves in an unprecedented crisis, with no improvements yet in sight, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.
"As a result, we are dealing with the most profound, unprecedented crisis in Russian-U.S. relations. The administration [of U.S. President Joe Biden] has driven them into a deadlock. The dialogue has been strictly fragmentary, addressing a handful of subjects, while every other area has been frozen for political reasons," Ryabkov said at a press conference in Moscow on Thursday.
"The assumptions of our U.S. vis-a-vis that the shortest way to diplomacy is further supplies of weapons and the strengthening of Ukraine's positions on the battlefield are so absurd by their twisted logic that I believe they do not require any separate, additional analysis," he said.
"We do not see any readiness even for an alternative view of the ongoing events, not to mention any change of this behavioral model," Ryabkov said.
"So, at this point, today, I do not see any prospects for launching a productive political, political-diplomatic process," he said.
According to him, the state of bilateral relations has affected the New START treaty negotiations. Russia realized "the impossibility of doing business as usual in this area, because this is not happening in a vacuum," he said.
"I do not think we will see any trend emerging in the medium term through stabilization to improve bilateral relations with the United States. There are no preconditions for that," Ryabkov said.
"U.S. elites have come to consensus on anti-Russian grounds. In fact, there is just a handful of sober-minded people in policy-making circles. Everyone else has joined the chorus of those who yearn for a strategic defeat of Russia. No such defeat will happen," he said.