State Department: US Would Prefer to Have Stronger Ties With Russia

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States would like to have stronger relations with Moscow, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a press briefing on Tuesday.

"Overall, I can tell the United States’ government would certainly prefer to have a stronger relationship with the Russian government," Nauert told reporters.

On Friday, Trump said it was possible that he will meet the Russian president this summer. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to Sputnik such possibility.

On Monday, Russian lawmaker Konstantin Kosachev told reporters that US senators had requested a meeting in the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, and it may be held in early July.

Since 2014, relations between Russia and the United States have deteriorated amid the crisis in Ukraine. Washington has introduced several rounds of anti-Russia sanctions after Crimea's reunification with Russia and the latter's alleged involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

Russia has refuted all the accusations and taken retaliatory economic restrictions.

A new wave of sanctions followed the West's allegations on Russia sponsoring malign cyberactivity, which Moscow called groundless. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that the West did not have a weakest argument to substantiate its claims, adding that such ill-founded accusations have been completely devalued.