Tillerson and Putin Meet in Moscow: After Chilly Reception, Leaders Acknowledge "It's a Deep Freeze"

Dale Hurd : Apr 13, 2017
CBN News

"There is a low level of trust between our two countries. The world's two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship." — U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at yesterday's press conference in Moscow

(Russia) — [CBN News] Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hasn't produced any positive shift yet in Russia-U.S. relations, the Kremlin said Thursday. (Screengrab via CBN News)

"Right now we're not getting along with Russia at all," said a blunt President Donald Trump as tensions between the two nuclear powers continue to worsen.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. U.S.-Russia relations were supposed to improve under the Trump administration.

However, the Syrian nerve gas attack blamed on Russia's ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad, and the retaliatory U.S. missile attack against Syria has sent U.S.-Russia ties to rock bottom.

"The current state of U.S. Russian Relations is at a low point," Tillerson, who is in Moscow for meetings, said at a joint news conference Wednesday.

Putin also said on Russian TV that the level of trust has "deteriorated."

A Chilly Reception in Moscow

The news comes after Tillerson faced an unusually chilly reception in Moscow. (Screengrab via CBN News)

The U.S. missile strike on Syria that triggered the diplomatic crisis hit a Syrian airbase where there had been Russian military personnel, so did Moscow know about the chemical weapons?

Trump said, "I would like to think that they didn't know, but certainly they could have. They were there. So we'll find out."

After a tense, two-hour, closed door meeting with Putin, Tillerson then angered Russia by bluntly calling for regime change in Damascus: "Our view is that the reign of

the Assad family is coming to an end," he said.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, referring to Iraq, said, "Experiments like that, which are built on an obsession with overthrowing dictators, totalitarian or authoritarian leaders, we have already seen. We know the ending of it way too well."

The two sides also agreed to disagree about Ukraine, where Moscow backs rebel forces.

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