Russian President Vladimir Putin believes Russia has not lost its desire to improve its relations with the US, according to the president.
"There is nothing that cannot be done if one really wants to. We never lost such a desire," Putin told Pavel Zarubin on Sunday, a journalist of Russia's state TV and radio company VGTRK, answering a question on prospects for improvement in Russia-US relations, reports Xinhua news agency.
According to the Russian news agency TASS, the Russian President was responding to a question on whether Russia and the United States could normalize their relations.
The Russian President said that his country is ready to build relations with other countries, provided 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 stress the shift in international relations and reminded everyone 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."
"Slowly, as Russia was accumulating, it restored all its rights in the Black Sea too, 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.
According to the outlet, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described US-Russia relations as "on the verge of rupture".
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