Boris Johnson and his Russian counterpart clashed over Crimea and Moscow’s alleged cyber attacks on the West, as the two men met in Moscow.
Sergey Lavrov denied claims that Moscow had interfered in democratic elections online and accused Mr Johnson of being a “hostage” of untrue Western narratives on the issue.
But Mr Johnson insisted there was “abundant evidence” of Russian interference in polls in the US, Germany, Denmark and France.
And when the Russian foreign minister told a press conference in Moscow that Mr Johnson himself had confirmed Russia had not interfered in the UK’s election and Brexit referendum, the Foreign Secretary interrupted to add: “Not successfully.”
The clash came after Mr Johnson issued a warning to the Kremlin that Britain was “prepared and able” to respond in kind to cyber attacks.
Speaking after more than an hour of talks on the first visit to Russia by a British foreign secretary for five years, both men acknowledged that relations between the two countries were at their worst for many years.
Sergei Lavrov during talks with Boris Johnson (Stefan Rousseau/PA)
But they insisted that Russia and the UK had a duty to work together as fellow permanent members of the UN Security Council on issues affecting global security like Syria, Iran and North Korea.
And both said they had established a level of personal trust, Mr Lavrov saying he got on well enough with Mr Johnson to pronounce his first name in the Russian way as “Barees”.
Mr Johnson said he adopted the approach Ronald Reagan had taken with Mikhail Gorbachev: “Trust, but verify.”
And he joked that his trust was so great that he had handed his coat with “everything in my pockets, secret or otherwise” to Mr Lavrov when he arrived at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building.
Mr Lavrov joked back: “I can say that there was nothing in the pockets of Boris’s coat”, to which Mr Johnson responded in surprise: “So you have searched it already?”
Noting that bilateral relations were “at a low point”, Mr Lavrov pointedly said that Russia preferred to discuss their differences in private.
Mr Johnson told him that, although London and Moscow were at loggerheads over Ukraine, the Balkans and alleged online mischief by the Russians, both sides had a duty to work together on global priorities like preserving the Iranian nuclear deal and countering the threat to stability from North Korea.
And he welcomed signs of increasing trade, cheekily joking that 300 Bentley cars were sold in Russia last year, “not, I believe, necessarily to employees of the Foreign Ministry”.
Boris Johnson heads to Moscow (Stefan Rousseau/PA)
As he arrived for the first visit to Russia by a British Foreign Secretary for five years, Mr Johnson sent a blunt message to the Kremlin to stop its use of cyberspace to disrupt Western countries.
He told reporters: “The UK is certainly prepared and able to respond, should we so desire.”
Facing Mr Johnson across a conference table at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Guest House in Moscow, Mr Lavrov said: “It is no secret that right now our relations are at a low point.”