US Misleads Public on Progress in Resolving Diplomatic Crisis With Russia, Moscow Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The United States deliberately misleads the public when it says that there is progress in resolving the Washington-Moscow diplomatic crisis, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Thursday.

"The fragmentary aspects of the voluminous visa dossier, on which it is possible to find mutual understanding, do not change the overall very negative and increasingly alarming picture. My conclusion: the State Department has been deliberately misleading the public of the Russian Federation and the United States for several days, pretending that there has been some serious progress," Ryabkov told reporters.

Russia and the US will develop a format to discuss security guarantees for the Russian "red lines," Ryabkov said.

"I proceed from the fact that the formats for continuing the discussion of those red lines that our leadership has been talking about in recent days, as well as the receipt by Russia of the most reliable legal legally binding security guarantees, are subject to further discussion," Ryabkov told reporters.

There is a whole series of platforms where such issues can be discussed, he said.

"Nothing has been decided yet. The US announcements, which are made unilaterally, do not create a new reality for us, they are simply a reminder that these issues have to be closely tackled," the diplomat added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden held two-hour bilateral talks on Tuesday evening in the format of video conference.