MOSCOW, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump has been forced to make anti-Russian decisions under pressure from his national political opponents, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday in an interview with local media.

"Judging by the personal meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House, or his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hamburg and their telephone conversations, I did not see Trump undermine his election campaign pledges to restore relations with Moscow," Russia's Tass news agency quoted Lavrov as saying.

Lavrov also said that Washington would gradually understand the incorrectness of its course toward Moscow, and he noticed that recently some members of the Congress and political circles in the United States, as well as diplomats, acknowledged quietly the absolute abnormality of such a situation and the need to improve it.

U.S.-Russia ties have been sour for some time, amid disagreements involving the war in Syria, the conflict in Ukraine and the Kremlin's alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, among others.