"The EU, which also imposed sanctions against Russia, considers these restrictions as a tool to pressure Russia into implementation of obligations under the 2015 Minsk agreement. If Trump puts together the two issues [sanctions and nuclear disarmament] into the context of a deal… it will destroy the Western consensus over the idea that these sanctions are the reaction on [Russia's] support of separatists in eastern Ukraine. Moscow would welcome such a dissociation of the West," Gernot Erler told Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper in an interview.
Election of Donald Trump as the US president in November 2016 opened new prospects for the future of US-Russian relations, as during the campaign he said Washington and Moscow need to normalize the relations and work closer together on a number of issues.
In December, the Russian envoy to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, said that the bloc would start reconsidering sanctions against Russia, over Moscow's alleged involvement in the Ukrainian conflict, if the new US administration softened the country's anti-Russian stance.
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