Putin says relations with EU 'in unsatisfactory state'

Moscow's relations with the EU are "unsatisfactory," Russian President Vladimir Putin told European Council head Charles Michel, the Kremlin said on Monday.

But Putin also expressed readiness to restore "a normal format of interaction," the Kremlin said in a statement.

"Vladimir Putin gave an assessment of the unsatisfactory state of Russian-EU relations, which has developed due to the unconstructive, sometimes confrontational line of the partners [the EU]," it said.

"The Russian side stressed its readiness to restore the normal depoliticized format of interaction with the European Union, if there is a real mutual interest in this," it added.

Putin and Michel also discussed the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and in particular the possibility of using the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, political settlement of the Ukraine conflict, the situation in Belarus, and other relevant topics, it said.

Russian forces entered Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in February 2014, with Putin formally dividing the region into two separate federal subjects of the Russian Federation the following month.

Turkey and the US, as well as the UN General Assembly, view the annexation as illegal, as does the EU, which imposed sanctions on Russia over the seizure.