“Putin is the president of Russia, and we had to deal with this reality against the backdrop of everything in Ukraine... other steps that were contrary to US interests that we saw from this president... We will continue to work based on this reality,” TASS quotes him .
Earlier, State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said that the United States does not plan to congratulate Russian President Vladimir Putin on his election victory.
According to him, the United States does not consider the presidential elections in Russia to be free or fair.
The current President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, received 87.28% of the votes based on the results of processing 100% of the ballots, according to the CEC data.