Moscow offered Washington a dialogue on strategic stability in line with the statements of Russian President Vladimir Putin during his address to the Federal Assembly. This was announced on Tuesday, April 27, by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.
“I would like to note that we have already proposed to the Biden administration to launch a dialogue on strategic stability in line with what Vladimir Putin said, meaning the consideration of concerns in this area and the search for ways to resolve existing problems,” the diplomat said during a meeting on the arms control crisis.
Earlier in the day, Russian Senator Alexei Pushkov criticized an earlier statement by White House spokesman Jen Psaki, who said Washington is seeking to reduce tensions with Moscow. He ironically recalled the imposed sanctions, which, according to him, are clearly not a demonstration of the states’ peace-loving attitude.
On April 26, Jen Psaki said that the United States does not consider sanctions as the only tool in building relations with Russia, but is seeking to reduce tensions between the two countries.
The day before, it became known that the United States was included in the list of countries unfriendly to the Russian Federation, which will be prohibited from hiring Russian citizens to work in a diplomatic mission. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that this step would be a response to the unfriendly actions of the American side, which was the first to take measures to aggravate relations.
On April 21, during the announcement to the Federal Assembly, Putin announced that Russia would react to external pressure. At the same time, according to him, the country behaves modestly and often simply ignores not only unfriendly actions, but also outright rudeness from other countries.
On April 19, the press secretary of the head of state Dmitry Peskov warned that if Washington continues the policy of sanctions pressure on Moscow, Russia will respond to US restrictions on the basis of the principle of reciprocity.
On April 15, US President Joe Biden signed a decree on the introduction of new sanctions against Moscow, and the United States announced the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomatic missions in Washington. Later, the Russian Federation announced retaliatory sanctions, which provide for the expulsion of American diplomats, a ban on the entry of a number of high-ranking US officials into the country, etc.