Russia Calls on US to Give Up On Limiting Military Contacts With Moscow

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov urges the US not to limit military contacts with Moscow.

HELSINKI (Sputnik) — Russia would like the United States to abandon the idea of limiting military contacts with Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said.

"We called on the Americans to abandon, after all, their all-too-common self-imposed limits on full-fledged interaction with our military, based on empty pretexts. This is the moment when this should be abandoned," Ryabkov said Tuesday following talks with US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon in the Finnish capital, Helsinki.

The consultations with Shannon concerned bilateral relations as well as the issue of strategic stability.

"There was a long pause in contacts devoted to this subject, we now have a great number of questions," Ryabkov said.

The Russian deputy foreign minister added that the two diplomats discussed in detail various issues, including the US and NATO military capabilities moving closer to the Russian borders.