Putin aide says Russia is frustrated with Trump administration
MOSCOW -- The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin is expressing frustration with the inconclusive first two months of relations between Moscow and the Trump administration.
The election of President Trump, who had spoken admiringly of Putin and called for improved US-Russia relations, had raised hopes in the Kremlin. But Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says there are no signs of progress yet.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a better understanding of when this dialogue can begin,” Peskov said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria broadcast Sunday.
Mr. Trump’s campaign statements on Russia had led to speculation that the United States would drop sanctions imposed on Russia for its interference in Ukraine.
“Russia will never initiate putting this issue on the agenda,” according to a transcript of his CNN interview, Peskov said.
Peskov also reacted to allegations of Russian meddling in U.S. elections, dismissing an assessment by the U.S. intelligence community concluding with “high confidence” that Russia had interfered in the 2016 campaign in order to help Mr. Trump.
“We don’t know what’s the reason for these words. We’ve never seen any evidence, and we’ve never heard something trustful,” Peskov said. “What we have seen -- an open, a public part -- of a report by one of the agencies, special agencies of the United States. And I would humbly say that it’s not a paper of high quality, in terms of being really trustful.”