Don’t close the embassy, US ambassador tells Russia

WASHINGTON: Russia should not close the U.S. embassy despite the crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine because the world’s two biggest nuclear powers must continue to talk, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow was quoted as saying on Monday.

President Vladimir Putin has cast the invasion of Ukraine as a turning point in Russian history: a revolt against the hegemony of the United States, which the Kremlin chief says has humiliated Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

Ukraine – and its Western backers – says it is fighting for its survival against a reckless imperial-style land grab which has killed thousands, displaced more than 10 million people and reduced swathes of the country to wasteland.

Read more: Pakistan assures strengthening security for Chinese projects, says China

In a clear attempt to send a message to the Kremlin, John J. Sullivan, the U.S. ambassador appointed by President Donald Trump, told Russia’s state TASS news agency that Washington and Moscow should not simply break off diplomatic relations.

“We must preserve the ability to speak to each other,” Sullivan told TASS in an interview. He cautioned against the removal of the works of Leo Tolstoy from Western bookshelves or refusing to play the music of Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

Despite the crises, spy scandals and brinkmanship of the Cold War, relations between Moscow and Washington have not been broken off since the United States established ties with the Soviet Union in 1933.