Putin says Russia does not lose desire to improve ties with US Moscow, Dec 23 (IANS) Russia has not lost the desire to improve its relations with the US, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview. “Everything can be done if there is a desire. We have never lost this desire,” Putin told Pavel Zarubin on Sunday, a journalist of Russia’s state TV and radio company VGTRK, while answering a question about the prospects for improving Russia-US relations, reports Xinhua news agency. The Russian President was responding to a question about the possibility for Russia and the United States to normalise their relations, as reported by the Russian news agency TASS.

Putin said Russia is ready to build relations with other countries, provided that such efforts do not compromise Russian interests. “If we establish relations with someone, we will do so only based on the interests of the Russian state,” he said. Putin drew from the 19th and 20th centuries to emphasise the changes in international relations and recalled that after the Crimea War of 1853-1856, when a series of restrictions were imposed on Russia, then-Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire Alexander Gorchakov sent out a letter with the following words:

“Russia is not angry. Russia is concentrating.” “Gradually, as Russia was concentrating, it returned all its rights in the Black Sea as well, grew stronger and so on,” said Putin. Last week, Russia had issued an advisory for its citizens warning them not to travel to the US and other western countries claiming they could be “hunted” by the authorities in those states, Al Jazeera reported. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was cited by the outlet as describing the US-Russia relations as “on the verge of rupture”.