Russian President Vladimir Putin today slammed "forces" in the US who were willing to sacrifice Russian-US ties, two days after a summit with his US counterpart Donald Trump who has since faced a storm of criticism.
"We see that there are forces in the US that are easily ready to sacrifice Russian-American relations for their own ambitions," Putin said in a speech to Russian ambassadors gathered in Moscow.
"We see that there are forces in the US that put their narrow party interests higher than national ones," Putin went on to say. He added that Russia is "nevertheless open to developing contacts with the US on the basis of equality."
"We need a new positive agenda, aimed at working together and finding common ground," he said. "We talked about this of course while meeting President Trump."
"The sentence should have been, 'I don't see any reason why I wouldn't, or why it wouldn't be Russia.'"
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