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After taking office, the Obama administration has attached massive importance to improving its relations with Russia, and it has followed that strategy.

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (R) meets with former U.S. President Bill Clinton at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, June 29, 2010. Putin criticised the U.S. arrests of suspects in an alleged Russian spy ring and said on Tuesday he hoped the scandal would not set back improving Russian-U.S. ties. [Xinhua]

Trying to build a foundation for a strategic partnership with Moscow, the U.S. has renewed with Russia a nuclear disarmament deal, the New START treaty, and has courted its support in throwing another round of UN sanctions over Iran's nuclear program.

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Phil Gordon, top Russia policy official in the U.S. State Department, said: "We were not going to forgo the opportunity to pursue our common interests because there are things we disagreed on."

"I think you should see this spying issue in that context. We feel we have made significant progress in the 18 months that we have been pursuing this different relationship with Russia," he added.

However, not all are happy with that.

Victor Kremenyuk, deputy director of the Russian Institute for U.S. and Canada studies, was convinced the entire affair had been a "provocation."

"In the United States, there are forces unhappy with the rapprochement of the two countries and warming up of their relations," Kremenyuk told Xinhua. "Perhaps, somebody wants to shift the opinion of the U.S. lawmakers in light of current START ratification process and to disrupt the process."

Alexander Torshin, first deputy speaker of the Russian Federal Council, the parliament's upper house, urged caution.

"This is not a return to the Cold War, and this incident will not become a large-scale spy scandal," Torshin said.

Andrew Kuchins, the top Russia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, took a similar view.

"My guess is that like most spy scandals this is going to blow over," Kuchins said. 

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