The Russian ambassador in Washington arrived in Moscow, on Sunday, after being summoned for emergency consultations over the worst crisis in relations with the United States in years.
Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden described the Russian president as a "murderer," prompting Vladimir Putin to respond briefly in which he said: "We always see our characteristics in another person and think that he is like us."
And those exchanged statements pushed diplomatic relations between the two countries to a new low, after Moscow´s relations with Washington were already at rock bottom due to allegations of Russia´s interference in the US elections and the Kremlin’s decision to jail opposition Alexei Navalny.
Russian news agencies reported that the Russian envoy to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, landed at Moscow´s Sheremetyevo airport on Sunday morning, after he was summoned last week for consultations.
Before taking off from New York, he told news agencies that he would stay in Moscow "as necessary" and that a number of meetings were scheduled.
"The Russian side has always confirmed that we are interested in developing Russian-American relations to the same extent that our American colleagues do," TASS news agency quoted him as saying.
Moscow, which rarely returns its ambassadors, recalled its envoy to the United States in 1998 because of a Western bombing campaign in Iraq.
In 2014, after the United States said that Russia would face repercussions for annexing Crimea from Ukraine, Putin declined to summon his envoy, describing the measure as the "last option."
