Putin regrets the deterioration of relations between Russia and the West
The Russian president expressed his regret for the deterioration of his country's diplomatic relations with the West as a result of Russia's attack on Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin received a group of newly appointed ambassadors of European countries at the Kremlin Palace on Monday. After the ceremony of handing over the credentials, in a conversation with the newly appointed ambassador of Sweden in Moscow, Putin regretted the complete absence of political contacts between Russia and Sweden, limitations in the fields of "economic cooperation" and "cultural and humanitarian relations". While Sweden has been trying to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since the beginning of the Ukrainian war, Putin expressed regret for the country's abandonment of the "200-year-old policy of non-participation in military blocs." Speaking to the German ambassador, Putin expressed his satisfaction with the "pragmatic relations and cooperation" between Berlin and Moscow, while expressing regret for events such as the 2022 explosion of the Nordstream gas pipeline, which disrupted Russian gas supplies to Germany. In the conversation with the newly appointed ambassador of Great Britain, the Russian president was satisfied with only the following sentence that "everyone knows about the state of the dialogue between Russia and Britain". Meanwhile, Britain is considered one of the most active supporters of Ukraine in the war against Russia. And in a conversation with the newly appointed ambassador of Greece, Putin said that the state of relations between Russia and Greece is worrying, but he hopes that the history of traditional and ancient relations between the two countries will help restore bilateral cooperation.