Kremlin says it is 'calm' regarding Trump criticism of Putin over Ukraine talks

MOSCOW, July 9 (Reuters) - The Kremlin, asked on Wednesday about U.S. President Donald Trump's criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that Moscow was "calm" regarding the criticism, and that it would continue to try to fix a "broken" U.S.-Russia relationship.

In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "We are quite calm about this."

"We expect to continue our dialogue with Washington and our line on repairing the rather broken bilateral relations," he added.

Trump said on Tuesday he had approved sending U.S. defensive weapons to Ukraine and was considering additional sanctions on Moscow, underscoring his frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump pledged as a presidential candidate to end the war within a day but has not been able to follow through on that promise and efforts by his administration to broker peace have come up short.

Peskov said that Trump had come to an understanding that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine would not be easy to resolve.

He said: "We also heard a very important statement by Trump that the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict turned out to be much more difficult than he thought from the very beginning."