Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke at an economic forum in St. Petersburg on Friday, blaming the United States for trying to contain Russia and citing the United States response to Jan. 6 as a double standard.
Putin said he seeks to talk to President Joe Biden over arms control, global conflicts, the coronavirus pandemic, and climate change in their summit meeting in Geneva on June 16.
“We need to find ways of looking for a settlement in our relations, which are at an extremely low level now,” Putin said, according to The Daily Mail.
“We don’t have any issues with the U.S.,” he continued. “But it has an issue with us. It wants to contain our development and publicly talks about it. Economic restrictions and attempts to influence our country’s domestic politics, relying on forces they consider their allies inside Russia, stem from that.”
Putin appeared hopeful that the meeting in Geneva could ease tensions between the two countries. Since 2014 after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and accusations of Russian interference in U.S. elections, relations between the two countries appear to be at a Cold War low.
Putin then went on to criticize the United States’s handling of Jan. 6. “They weren’t just a crowd of robbers and rioters. Those people had come with political demands,” Putin said.
Source: Newmax
