Russian President Vladimir Putin warned today at a meeting of the board (leadership) of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) the "Western elites" not to try to sabotage potential rapprochement between Russia and the United States, making it clear that Moscow will use all its diplomatic and intelligence resources to thwart such attempts, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
Addressing the leadership of the FSB, the successor to the KGB and which he once headed, Putin said he was pleased with the way the reset of relations between Moscow and Washington was progressing, although it was still in its early stages.
The Russian president noted that the first contacts with the government of his American counterpart Donald Trump inspire certain hopes.
"We all see how quickly the world, the situation in the world, is changing. In this regard, I would like to note that the first contacts with the new American government inspire certain hopes. There is a desire on the other side to work on restoring interstate relations, on gradually resolving the huge number of accumulated systemic, strategic problems in the global security architecture," Putin said, quoted by TASS.
The Russian president emphasized that "it was precisely these problems that at one time became the cause of both the crisis in Ukraine and other crises."
He welcomed the fact that Russia's current partners on the American side are showing pragmatism and realism, abandoning the "ideological clichés" of their predecessors, which, in his words, led to a crisis in international relations.
Putin also indicated that Russia and the United States are ready to cooperate, but some Western political elites will try to undermine the dialogue between them.
"We understand that not everyone is happy with the resumption of Russian-American contacts. "Some Western elites are still determined to maintain instability in the world, and these forces will try to disrupt and compromise the dialogue that has begun," the Russian president said.
"We must be aware of this and use all resources, in terms of diplomacy and our intelligence services, to thwart such attempts," Putin urged.
He did not explicitly name whom he meant. His comments, however, appear to be a reference to the European Union and Britain, which have expressed concerns about the possibility of any Russian-US talks to end the war in Ukraine that exclude Kiev and the EU from the negotiating table or offer too many concessions to Moscow, Reuters notes.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who will hold talks with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Wednesday, said he was ready to send British troops to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force after the war ends - something Russia opposes. French President Emmanuel Macron also supported the deployment of peacekeeping forces.
The Russian president also told senior FSB officials that the number of cyberattacks against Russia is growing and that counterintelligence must increase its efforts to neutralize them.
"I will also note that with the development of digital technologies, the number of cyberattacks against domestic information infrastructure is growing, including against official government websites, as well as against websites and services of state corporations and other departments," Putin said.
The Russian president added that such crimes are "systemic, multifaceted and multi-vector in nature" and cause harm to both the state, business and ordinary citizens. "Increasing the security of domestic information infrastructure and finding new methods for neutralizing cyber threats is a task for your department, too," the Russian president emphasized in his address to the leadership of the Federal Security Service.