President Putin and President Trump are very much alike in their basic approach to international relations.They both insist on their priority as national interest. And they both understand pretty well that sometimes it is in your national interest to conduct good relationship with your counterpart, ensuring that those relationships are mutually beneficial and ensuring that - that you are really ready to take into account each other's concern.
Dmitry PeskovWe have variety of politicians in every country. And we have a variety of politicians in the United States. Some of them are saying that we are in favor of reestablishing good relationships with Russia. We think that we have lots of problems and we are sure that we will not be able to agree upon everything but we are sure that we have to have a dialogue with the Russians. Others are those who say, No, Russians are our enemy and we are strictly against any context with them. And we don't give a damn about their interests.
Dmitry PeskovOf course Russia is, let's say element, of American election campaign, was on the agenda to some extent but the influence of that element could have hardly been critical.
Dmitry PeskovTelephone contacts, of course, cannot give you the perfect picture of each other's personality. But at least, during those contacts, and before the election, we've seen some tweets by Mr. Trump saying that, that he was in favor of getting in dialogue with the Russian Federation to try to understand each other's concerns.
Dmitry Peskov