Lavrov Ups the Ante

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Sergei Lavrov gets cozy with ally President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran during an official meeting in Tehran June 20, 2007 (Reuters)

Yet again, more hostile words from the Russian leadership aimed at escalating tensions with the United States. After all the placating at the G8, and efforts by friends in Europe to smooth out these rough patches, and even a week long bonanza of brownnosing from the world’s business leaders – this is what you get. Moscow evidently finds confrontation advantageous to its interests. From TASS:

MOSCOW, June 21 (Itar-Tass) — The current state of Russian-US relations is alarming, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told an audience at the Carnegie Endowment Center in Moscow on Thursday. “There has developed alarm in the world in connection with the current situation,” Lavrov said, adding there was a gap in the foreign policy aspirations of Moscow and Washington. “Russia will by no means yield to any attempts at ideologization, let alone those coming from outside,” the Russian foreign minister said.