Haley: Russia making it ‘impossible’ to have relationship with US

Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Wednesday ripped Russia over its aggressive actions beyond its borders, saying it makes having a relationship with the U.S. “impossible.”

“Friend or foe?” @craigmelvin asks about Russia

“Depends on the day…The United States wants a relationship with Russia, but as long as they keep doing the actions that they’re doing, they’re making it impossible.” –@nikkihaley pic.twitter.com/e0ax7uM1oV

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) December 12, 2018

“The United States wants a relationship with Russia, but as long as they keep doing the actions that they’re doing, they’re making it impossible,” Haley said in an appearance on NBC’s “Today.”

{mosads}She pointed at Russian aggression toward Ukraine and the poisoning of two former Russian spies in the United Kingdom as actions that can’t “get a pass.”

“You can’t go poison someone in another country, like they did with the Skripals, and get a pass. You can’t go and invade Ukraine and think the rest of the world’s not going to notice.”

While President Trump has refrained from publicly condemning Moscow over its foreign provocations, members of his administration, such as Haley, have not held back.

Russia faced widespread criticism and increased sanctions after it was determined that the Kremlin ordered the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian intelligence agent, and his daughter in March in Salisbury, England. 

It is also still facing reverberations from its annexation of Crimea in Ukraine in 2014, which also resulted in sanctions on officials linked to the Kremlin and the expulsion of Russia from the Group of Eight large world economies. 

Most recently, Moscow has faced bipartisan scrutiny over its meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, with members on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill accepting the intelligence community’s assessment that the Kremlin sought to influence the election in favor of President Trump while Trump himself continues to dispute those findings. 

Trump during the campaign vowed to work to mend relations with Russia, saying it would be a “good thing” if he and Russian President Vladimir Putin got along.

A meeting between Putin and Trump last summer in Helsinki was widely panned by lawmakers and U.S. allies for his failure to publicly confront the Russian leader over Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election.

Just last month, the president canceled a meeting with Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Argentina due to military tensions between Moscow and Ukraine.