U.S.-Russia relations are in the worst state that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev can remember, he said Thursday, even though he believes President Donald Trump wants to improve them.
Speaking at his annual question and answer session with journalists broadcast on Kremlin-run television, Medvedev said U.S.-Russia relations “are worst in my memory” — and, he stressed, he was alive during the period under former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
“They are very bad,” Medvedev said. “I would say appalling. They are the worst I can remember.”
U.S.-Russia relations have worsened this year since President Donald Trump signed new economic sanctions against the Kremlin. Earlier this month, Washington branded Kremlin-run media operating in the United States “foreign agents.”
During the roundtable with journalists, Medvedev recounted his meeting with Trump at a summit in the Philippines this month, saying that the president struck him as wanting to improve relations.
“The impression [Trump] makes is that of a friendly political figure ready to establish full-scale contacts and who reacts reasonably towards everything,” Medvedev said.
But, he said, Trump is hamstrung by a “wave of Russophobic hysteria” in the United States.
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