Putin: Trump not to blame for lack of improved relations with Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin said lack of improvement in Russia/U.S. relations are not the fault of President Trump, according to Reuters.

“We know that, including during his previous election campaign, he spoke in favor of a normalization but unfortunately it has not happened yet,” Putin said in an interview with Arab broadcasters Al Arabiya, Sky News Arabia and RT Arabic that aired on Sunday ahead of his scheduled Monday visit to Saudi Arabia.  “But we have no claims because we see what’s going on in U.S. domestic politics.”{mosads}

The Russian president said the U.S.’ “internal political agenda” prevented Trump from taking bigger steps to normalize Moscow-Washington relations, and said Russia will cooperate with any U.S. administration to the extent that the U.S. itself is willing, according to Reuters.

In the same interview, Putin said Russia’s own weapons capabilities were capable of neutralizing any threat posed by Romanian and Polish NATO missile deployments.

“This obviously poses a threat to us because it’s an attempt to level out our strategic nuclear potential. It’s bound to fail, this attempt, it’s already obvious,” Putin said, according to Reuters.