By Daniel DePetris
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov delivered a depressing assessment on the state of U.S.-Russia relations earlier this month. While holding out a sliver of hope that ties between Washington and Moscow could improve, Lavrov said 'the confrontation has hit the bottom'. His remarks came a fortnight after U.S. president Joe Biden and Russian president Vladimir Putin scolded one another like two children in the schoolyard, with the former calling Putin 'a killer' and the latter hinting that Biden may be suffering from ill health. Relations, in turns out, weren’t at the bottom as Lavrov thought.
We know this because the dynamics between the U.S. and Russia have only gotten worse in the weeks since. You can excuse someone for thinking U.S.-Russia relations are as bad today as they were in the early 1980s, when the two Cold War adversaries were on the opposite sides of a geopolitical and ideological struggle.
Anatoly Antonov, the Russian Ambassador in Washington, hasn’t been in town for over a month. Meanwhile, America's Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan is heading home for consultations, days after the Kremlin suggested the veteran diplomat take some time off.
This piece was originally published in The Spectator on April 21, 2021. Read more HERE.