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US relations in ‘ice age’: Russia’s ambassador to Washington
US-Russia ties have fallen to their lowest point in decades amid the fallout from Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, and the consequent imposition of Western sanctions.
MOSCOW/KYIV: Russia’s ambassador to the US on Friday compared the state of US-Russia relations to an “ice age”, and said that the risk of a clash between the two countries was “high”, Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported.
TASS cited Anatoly Antonov as saying that it was hard to say when talks on strategic dialogue between the two sides could resume, but that talks on prisoner swaps had been “effective” and would continue.
US-Russia ties have fallen to their lowest point in decades amid the fallout from Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, and the consequent imposition of Western sanctions.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sounded another defiant note on his return to his nation’s capital on Friday following his wartime visit to the US, saying his forces are “working toward victory” even as Russia warned that there would be no end to the war until it achieved its military aims.
Zelensky posted on his Telegram account that he’s in his Kyiv office following his US trip that secured a new $1.8 billion military aid package, and pledged that “we’ll overcome everything.“
Zelensky’s return comes amid relentless Russian artillery, rocket and mortar fire as well as airstrikes on the eastern and southern fronts and elsewhere in Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the war would end at the negotiating table once the “special military operation“ achieves “the goals that the Russian Federation has set,” adding that “a significant headway has been made on demilitarisation of Ukraine.”
The Kremlin spokesman said no reported Ukrainian peace plan can succeed without taking into account “the realities of today that can’t be ignored” — a reference to Moscow’s demand that Ukraine recognize Russia’s sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed in 2014, as well as other territorial gains.
