Blinken, Lavrov arrive at Arctic Council meetings

Top diplomats from the United States, Russia and Scandinavian nations arrived for the Arctic Council meetings in Reykjavik, Iceland on Thursday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russia’s longtime Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived minutes apart, one day after the two sparred politely during their first face-to-face encounter, which came as ties between the nations have deteriorated sharply in recent months.

Even before Wednesday's talks the two diplomats laid down near diametrically opposed positions for the meeting, previewing what was likely to be a difficult and contentious exchange over myriad issues including Ukraine, the Arctic, Russia’s treatment of opposition figure Alexey Navalny and accusations of cyber malfeasance, including claims that Russia-based hackers were responsible for a ransomware attack on a key U.S. pipeline.