Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says controversy over Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTrump's policies on refugees are as simple as ABCs Ocasio-Cortez, Velázquez call for convention to decide Puerto Rico status White House officials voted by show of hands on 2018 family separations: report MORE may halt improving ties between the U.S. and Russia.

“[It’s] an emotional atmosphere [that] leads to resistance to the idea of some kind of U.S.-Russia dialogue,” Dmitry Peskov said Thursday when asked about Sessions’s reported talks with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, according to The Associated Press.

Peskov said Russian diplomats routinely meet with U.S. lawmakers such as Sessions, who was a GOP senator for Alabama during his discussions with Kislyak in 2016.

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Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, said her nation’s diplomats often conduct “everyday business” with their American counterparts.

“What is happening now in the West, particularly in the U.S. media, it’s just the manifestation of some kind of media vandalism,” she said.

Reports emerged late Wednesday that Sessions spoke twice with Kislyak last year while serving as a major surrogate for now-President Trump’s campaign.

Sessions did not disclose speaking with Kislyak during his confirmation hearings for attorney general, testifying under oath that he “did not have communications with the Russians.”

The former senator reportedly spoke with Kislyak in July during a Heritage Foundation event attended by about 50 diplomats.

Sessions then purportedly conversed with the diplomat via phone in September, a time when U.S. intelligence officials say Russia was interfering in the 2016 race.

The pair’s discussions are under scrutiny following reports last month that top aides and allies to Trump’s presidential bid were in recurring contact with senior Russian intelligence officials last year.

Sessions, who has maintained that he spoke with Kislyak as a senator rather than as a Trump surrogate, said early Thursday he would recuse himself from a federal probe into the matter if necessary.

“I have said whenever it’s appropriate, I will recuse myself,” he told NBC News. "There’s no doubt about that.”

“Well, I have not met with any Russians at any time to discuss any political campaigns,” Sessions added of his talks with Kislyak. "Those remarks are unbelievable to me and are false. I don’t have anything else to say about that.”

Democrats are now pressuring Sessions to recuse himself from any Russia investigation, and some top party members have also called for his resignation.