WASHINGTON — On the eve of next week’s G-8 summit meeting, relations between the United States and Russia have ebbed to their lowest level since the Cold War, fueled by Moscow’s growing confidence and an apparent Russian perception of U.S. weakness. Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded to American plans for a European-based missile-defense system by testing a new intercontinental missile, publicly blasted a U.S.-backed initiative to give independence to the Serbian province of Kosovo and frustrated American diplomatic initiatives on several fronts. Putin, alluding to U.S. ‘imperialism,’ said Thursday that the missile test was a response to the Bush administration’s plans to put a missile-defense radar and 10 interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic. ‘We are not the initiators of this new round of the arms race,’ Putin told a Kremlin news conference. ‘Our partners are stuffing eastern Europe with new weapons,’ he said. ‘What are we supposed to do? We cannot just observe all this.’ While the Russian leader is a former KGB officer and his rhetoric echoed of the Cold War, U.S. officials and analysts don’t expect a return to U.S.-Russian military confrontation. But the disputes appear certain to cloud the […]