Russian President Putin blames US for Ukrainian crisis while accepting credentials of new US ambassador in Moscow.
On Wednesday, April 5, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin accepted the credentials of Lynne Tracy, the new US ambassador to Moscow, and told her that Washington was responsible for the “Ukrainian crisis”.
Putin, who has accused Washington of orchestrating a revolution in Kyiv in 2014, stated that US foreign policy “in the end led to the current Ukrainian crisis”.
The Kremlin ceremony, which also saw 16 other ambassadors sworn in, came at a time when relations between Moscow and Washington have disintegrated since Putin sent troops to Ukraine last year.
Putin emphasized that “relations between Russia and the United States, from which global security and stability directly depend, are going through a deep crisis.”
The new US envoy, Tracy, is a Russian-speaking career diplomat who has worked in the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. She became an ambassador at a time when US-Russia relations are at their lowest point in years.
Putin also met with the new EU envoy to Moscow, Roland Galharague, and accused the bloc of instigating a “geopolitical confrontation” with Moscow.
