Sputnik Editor-in-Chief Hopes for Normalization of Russia-West Relations

Sputnik news agency and RT broadcaster Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan on Saturday expressed hope for a gradual normalization of relations between Russia and the West in the coming several years.

KHABAROVSK (Sputnik) — Russia has faced repeated allegations from the United States that it may have influenced the 2016 presidential election. French President Emmanuel Macron, who won the election in May, accused RT and Sputnik of spreading fake news.

"It seems to me that amid this absolutely politically technological and obviously anti-Russian pre-election hysteria in the United States, France and now in Germany, this is a clear tantrum of spin doctors… I have a feeling, I hope I am correct, that the average temperature in the hospital is approaching the level pf 36.6 degrees Celsius. If nothing terrible happens I think that we will witness a gradual normalization in the next several years," Simonyan said in a program aired by TV Tsentr broadcaster on Saturday.

Russian officials have repeatedly denied US claims that it meddled in the election and called such allegations absurd. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in February that Moscow had never interfered in foreign states' internal affairs and was not intending to do so in the future. Simonyan, in particular, repeatedly stressed that not a single example of "fake news" spreading by the Russian media was ever provided by Macron's team.