U.S.-Russia Relations Deteriorated Unprecedentedly Under Previous Administration, Peskov Says

Relations between Russia and the United States have deteriorated unprecedentedly during Joe Biden's presidency, making the record-long absence of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the new American leader unsurprising, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS.

Peskov commented on TASS's calculations, noting that for the first time in modern Russian history, more than six months will pass from the inauguration of the new U.S. president until a summit with the Russian president.

“Ultimately, our bilateral relations have experienced an unprecedented decline under the previous administration,” Peskov emphasized.

According to TASS calculations, it has been 6 months and 16 days since the new U.S. president's inauguration, yet his personal meeting with the Russian president has not yet taken place. Previously, the longest wait was for a meeting between Putin and Trump, which took 5 months and 18 days during the earlier part of that American leader's first term.

In other years, the waiting time for a Russia-U.S. summit averaged between one and five months. After being elected, the current U.S. president, Donald Trump, demonstrated a desire to regulate relations with Russia. The new American leader considered meeting with Vladimir Putin to be significant; however, as emphasized by the Kremlin, the summit should be the result of broad bilateral work, not a prelude to it. Nonetheless, the leaders have maintained constant communication, having held six phone calls since the beginning of 2025.