US President Donald Trump has not yet called Russian President Vladimir Putin to congratulate him on the election victory.
According to the Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the absence of a message of congratulations from Trump to Vladimir Putin upon his election victory is not an unfriendly step, adding it would make sense "to sleep on it."
"This should not be regarded as an unfriendly step. Putin remains open to normalization of relations with US partners there where it is of interest and crucial. The president is receiving many congratulations from foreign leaders. Some may be unable to make a phone call due to a tight schedule, and others, for a different reason. It’ll be wrong to exaggerate anything. Lastly, there is a good old saying: ‘Sleep on it’," Peskov said.
"Putin is receiving more congratulations from his foreign counterparts on Tuesday," TASS cited the spokesman as saying.
"Some telephone conversations are underway at the moment. We’ll brief you on them," Peskov stressed, adding that phone calls would continue in the afternoon.
The US administration earlier said Washington did not find the results of the presidential election in Russia unexpected. "We’re not surprised by the outcome," White House deputy spokesman Hogan Gidley said yesterday, adding that currently there are no plans for a telephone conversation between Trump and Putin.
The deputy head of the Council of the Russian Diplomats Association, Andrey Baklanov, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the absence of a congratulatory message from Trump is a consequence of strained relations between the US and Russia. "As a rule, the time of congratulations on victory depends on the climate and traditions existing between the countries. The more friendly and trustworthy relations countries have, the faster the reaction is, either in the form of a written message or in the form of a telephone conversation, or in other ways. There can be delays related to the cool relations existing between the two countries, or circumstances of an internal political nature. I think that's the case with Donald Trump," he said.
The senior research fellow at the European Research Centre of the International Relations Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Olenchenko, in turn, said that he was expecting congratulations from Trump. "I was asked about this, and I expressed confidence that the congratulation will take place. Perhaps, one can always find some explanation why he was late or why did not congratulate," he said.
In this case, according to the expert, the absence of a congratulatory message from Trump can indirectly indicate that the US influenced the elections, but could not achieve the desired result.
He also added that Trump's silence can be explained by the fact that at the moment the CEC has not officially announced the results of the vote, since the term allocated by the commission for counting votes expires only after ten days.
However, Olenchenko noted that the absence of official statements by the CEC did not prevent leaders of other countries from congratulating Putin on winning the presidential election. "Congratulations came not only from countries that are friendly to Russia, but also from those that currently support sanctions, for example, Germany," the analyst added.
Olenchenko also drew attention to the fact that the form and content of diplomatic congratulations are important. "I do not exclude the possibility that the administration of the US president is thinking about the form of congratulation to be made," the senior research fellow at the European Research Centre of the International Relations Institute noted.
