WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Washington and Moscow should have a new reset in their relations, former Republican presidential candidate and WWII veteran Bob Dole told Sputnik at the commemoration ceremony for the 70th anniversary of the victory in Washington, DC.
“We have got to get back together again. We are both good people in each country. We just have to somehow get [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and [US President Barack] Obama or the next president maybe to have another reset,” Dole said on Friday.
Relations between Russia and the West deteriorated over the crisis in eastern Ukraine, with western powers accusing Russia of meddling in the conflict. Moscow has repeatedly denied those allegations.
“We would not have made it without each other in World War II,” he said. “You [Soviet Union] lost millions of people and you made the greatest sacrifice. Huge losses…generations of young men.”
During the war, Dole was a platoon leader in the Tenth Mountain Division in Italy. In 1945, he was wounded on the battlefield, and was decorated three times.
Dole has become the longest-serving Republican leader in the US Congress. In 1996, he was a Republican nominee in the US presidential election, but lost the election to Bill Clinton. Dole was also the Republican vice presidential nominee in the 1976 US presidential election, however, lost to Walter Mondale.