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.