MOSCOW: The new US ambassador to Russia has presented his credentials to President Vladimir Putin in a Kremlin ceremony that politely hinted at the challenges the career diplomat will face, with the Washington and Moscow locked in their worst confrontation since the Cold War over the crisis in Ukraine.

Putin gave a slight smile as John Tefft strode toward him Wednesday through the vast gilded hall. The Russian leader said: “We are ready for practical cooperation with our American partners in all fields on the principles of respect for each other’s interests, equal partnership and non-interference in our domestic affairs.”

Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Wednesday that Germany and Russia have widely diverging views on the conflict in Ukraine which is a long way from reaching a solution, . “We are still in a situation unfortunately where we’re far from a sustainable deescalation of the conflict and further still from a political solution,” Steinmeier said in Berlin after his one-day visit to Kiev and Moscow on Tuesday.

Steinmeier told reporters after meeting Poland’s foreign minister that Berlin had a “substantially different view of events in Ukraine” to Putin, adding that it should be clear in two or three weeks if his talks with Putin had helped.