The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused outgoing US President Barrack Obama’s administration of promising a “respectful” cooperation between Washington and Moscow, but pursuing a master-slave approach in reality.
“It is worth recalling that it was Barack Obama who, at the beginning of his first term in 2009, proclaimed the restart with Russia and the development of comprehensive relations. At some point, we managed to conclude a number of important bilateral agreements, including the CIS agreement in 2010,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova said at a press conference in Moscow on Thursday.
She added, “However, our partners could not manage it for long. Promising verbally to cooperate in a respectful way, in reality, Washington had an interaction like a master and slave in mind. And that is exactly the way the White House used to do business and cooperate with Western European countries.”
“The behavior of the Obama administration looks so ridiculous and so shameful for such a great country as the United States… We sincerely regret that the presidency of Barack Obama, especially his second term, was a period of missed opportunities for bilateral relations,” the senior Russian official pointed out.
She expressed hope that the incoming US administration led by Donald Trump would “show wisdom and focus on a normal pragmatic dialogue.”
Meanwhile, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has described degrading Russo-US relations as Obama administration’s major foreign policy blunder.
In fact, “US-Russia relations completely fell apart by the end of the second term of the Obama administration,” Medvedev wrote in a post published on his official Facebook page.
He added that the Obama administration has proven to be “short-sighted on such an important and complex issue as relations with Russia.”
Medvedev further noted that US political pressure and economic restrictions on Russian businesses and individuals have reduced Moscow-Washington cooperation to zero.
The Russian prime minister expressed hope that Washington would adopt a more balanced approach towards his country under Trump.
“We are ready to do our share of the work in order to improve the relationship,” Medvedev commented.