U.S. attitude to Russia "nothing less than antagonistic" - President Putin
MOSCOW. Oct 16 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the attitude of U.S. President Barack Obama's administration toward Moscow as "antagonistic".
"As for the prospects of Russian-American ties, we have always sought to have transparent relations with the U.S. as partners. However, instead, we have received different reservations and attempts to interfere in our domestic affairs. I feel all the more unhappy about the events that have been occurring since the beginning of this year," Putin said in an interview with Serbia's Politika daily ahead of his visit to Belgrade.
"Washington actively supported Maidan and then started to accuse Russia of provoking this crisis when its henchmen in Kyiv set a considerable part of Ukraine against themselves by their unbridled nationalism and plunged the country into a civil war," he said.
"Speaking at the UN General Assembly, President Obama named "Russian aggression in Europe" among today's three main threats facing mankind, along with the deadly Ebola virus and the Islamic State terrorist group," Putin said.
"Amid the restrictions imposed on whole sectors of our economy, such an approach can be called nothing less than antagonistic," the Russian president said.
The U.S. had made "vocal statements" and suspended cooperation with Russia in space exploration and nuclear power, as well as the activities of the Russian-American Presidential Commission, he said.
