Vladimir Lukin, a Russian scholar and diplomat, believes that the countries have experienced a complete loss of trust.

The American statesman Henry Kissinger thinks that the U.S.-Russia relations are at their lowest point in 50 years, according Russian Senator Vladimir Lukin. Mr. Lukin, a former diplomat and scholar in his own right, who now serves in Russia’s Federation Council shared his revelations regarding the opinion of his distinguished U.S. colleague on March 25, 2017 at a Georgetown University forum dedicated to the history of Russian-American relations.

“I met with a person as authoritative as Henry Kissinger,” Mr. Lukin said. “We had a long enough conversation at his home, and he thinks the relations between Russia and the U.S. are in the worst shape over fifty or so years.”

Mr. Lukin was astonished to learn of Mr. Kissinger’s assessment of the situation to the point of asking whether the former U.S. Secretary of State meant 50 or just 15 years. In response, Mr. Kissinger explained that he considered the relationship to be at a lowest point in over a half of a century, beginning with John Kennedy, who was President from 1961 through 1963.

Asked if the Russophobic atmosphere in Washington was impeding his dialogue during the trip to the United States, Mr. Lukin said that his contacts were not affected.

On the contrary, Mr. Lukin explained that he kept up very good personal contacts with individuals engaged in Russia-related work over many years following his posting as the Russian ambassador to Washington in the first part of the 1990s.

According to Mr. Lukin, emotions run high against Russia these days as a consequence of an extremely bitter political infighting in the U.S. domestic political machine that has nothing to do with Russia. Nevertheless, the former ambassador admitted that the existing state of affairs would “put the brakes” on the two countries’ bilateral progress for “quite some time.”

In response to a question as to what would have been the right action course to start ironing out the relationship, Mr. Lukin noted that the overall climate needed to be improved. “I think we don’t have many specific problems in our relationship, but the real problem is a full loss of trust in each other,” Mr. Lukin emphasized. “This loss affects many specific areas. We need to start trusting each other again so that we could discuss problems, to say nothing of resolving them, and that’s something the Russian and the U.S. people in power don’t have.”