Kremlin says summit won't stop US trying to contain Russia
The Kremlin said on Monday it didn't expect america to avoid trying to "contain" Russia after a summit of their leaders, and that it had been important for the two powers to be pragmatic amid talk of new U.S. sanctions.
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN on Sunday that america was preparing more sanctions with regards to the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden met the other day for a summit in Geneva that they both referred to as pragmatic rather than friendly. Ties are acutely strained. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that Moscow was alert to possible impending U.S. sanctions.
"The president's words about the constructive mood during the summit usually do not indicate that people have moved from a sober assessment of our bilateral relations with the United States," Peskov said. "Pragmatism and sobriety are most significant in these relations. And both advise that the constructive, excellent results of the summit absolutely usually do not indicate that america will abandon its policy of containing Russia," he said.
Navalny was flown to Germany in August this past year after being poisoned with what German doctors said was the Soviet-era military-grade nerve agent Novichok. Russian authorities have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Both countries were set to go over "normalizing" the work of their respective embassies, the foreign ministry said on Monday.
Russia's ambassador to america, who had been out of Washington for months, returned on Sunday following a summit. (Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Angus MacSwan)
