Moscow Says Ties With US Will Be Hard to Repair

Moscow on Wednesday said it would be “very difficult” to improve US-Russia relations, which have plummeted to Cold War lows on accusations of election meddling and crises in Syria and Ukraine.

Deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov accused the US of trying to meddle in Russia’s internal affairs ahead of a presidential election next month, after Washington indicted 13 Russians for an alleged covert effort to interfere in 2016 US polls, AFP reported.

“Paradoxically, the Americans are taking steps that are aimed at intervening in our internal affairs, intensifying tension in bilateral relations ahead of presidential elections, but they continue to groundlessly, unprovenly blame us for allegedly interfering in their electoral processes,” Ryabkov told the news agency Interfax.

“Every day we hear threats and all kinds of insinuations, attempts to blame Russia and Russian citizens for some activity that does not suit the American side. It is clear that all this continues to have a negative impact on the relations between the two countries,” he said.

“Of course we in Moscow regret all of this,” he said of potential sanctions against the 13 Russians who were indicted last week as part of a US federal government probe.

“It will be very difficult to move relations with the US on from their current state,” he said.

Several US congressional committees and special prosecutor Robert Mueller are investigating allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election and collusion with the campaign of President Donald Trump.

On Friday, the US Justice Department revealed in court documents that the United States has accused 13 Russian nationals and three entities of trying to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. The 27-page indictment, a product of Mueller’s investigation, alleged that the accused used fake personas to influence the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.

The Kremlin has commented on the issue, saying that there was no “substantive evidence there that someone had interfered in [US] internal affairs.”

Russian officials have repeatedly denied the allegations of meddling in the US election, saying the claims are groundless and intended to divert public attention from actual instances of election corruption and other forms of misconduct as well as other pressing concerns.

 Litigation Over Diplomatic Quarters

Pointing to another bone of contention between the two super powers, Ryabkov said that great progress has been achieved in preparations for litigation with the US over Russian diplomatic property, but no date when the court proceedings may begin has been set yet.

“We have been through a very effort-consuming phase of gathering and generalizing all related evidence,” he said. “The degree of readiness of all packages of documents is rather high.”

The US authorities on September 2, 2017 closed Russia’s consulate-general in San Francisco, the trade mission in Washington and its office in New York, which Moscow had been using on lease terms. The first two facilities are Russian property and enjoy diplomatic immunity. Moscow interpreted the seizure of its diplomatic property as an openly hostile act and urged the US authorities to return it at once.

Speaking at a news conference in China’s Xiamen after the BRICS summit on September 5 Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the Foreign Ministry to protest the seizure of Russian property in a US court.

The Cold War rivals have also clashed over crises in Ukraine, Syria and Iran, with reciprocal expulsions of diplomats last year.

Following Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the war between Kiev and Kremlin-backed rebels, the US has imposed ever stricter sanctions on Moscow.