President Putin says Russia is ready to work with the United States
Russia has key interests in common with the United States and needs to work with it on a common agenda, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday in a television interview.
In his comments to the state-run Rossiya channel, Putin appeared to soften his anti-American rhetoric after being highly critical in recent months. Relations between Moscow and Washington and other Western powers have soured over the conflict in Russia’s neighbour Ukraine, sinking to an all-time low since the cold war.
There is something that unites us, that forces us to work together.
“We have disagreements on several issues on the international agenda. But at the same time there is something that unites us, that forces us to work together,” Putin said.
“I mean general efforts directed at making the world economy more democratic, measured and balanced, so that the world order is more democratic. We have a common agenda.”
Putin has in the past fiercely attacked the United States and the West in general, blaming them for the Ukraine crisis, which Russia says was the result of a Western-backed “coup” against Ukraine’s former leader Viktor Yanukovich.