Responding today to a media query regarding State Department spokesman Ned Price’s remark “that the Biden administration was trying to build more stable and predictable relations with Russia and that Russia allegedly caused them to become more unstable and unpredictable?” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova replied by again pointing to the danger of a direct clash between the U.S. and Russia as a result of U.S. policy in the Ukraine crisis. She stated “This is a false construct that can be easily redressed if you substitute the United States for Russia. We had no illusions whatsoever, but we honestly tried to find common ground – even amid the confrontation that Washington was fomenting – to make Russia-US relations stable and predictable.”
She went on: “The United States’ striving to maintain its hegemony at all costs while ignoring the new geopolitical realities, as well as its contemptuous unwillingness to engage in a serious dialogue about security guarantees have led to an outcome that was to be expected. … This is a dangerous and short-sighted policy that brings the U.S. and Russia to the brink of a face-to-face confrontation.”
Zakharova further said, “U.S. officials never [hesitate] to lie that Secretary of State Antony Blinken maintains contact with his colleague, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. For your information, July 29 was the last time they spoke on the telephone.”
She said “Moscow is calling on the Biden administration to take a clear-eyed assessment of the situation and prevent a dangerous escalation from spiraling out of control….” Zakharova said, and stressing that Moscow still wants to defuse tensions and is open to talking to the U.S. at various levels. (https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1844336/)
