According to the report, last year two mid-level U.S. officials visiting St. Petersburg for a conference were drugged in the bar of an upscale hotel, which was not named. The effect of the poison was so dramatic that one of the visitors was hospitalized, a U.S. government official told RFE/RL. When the victim was taken to an independent clinic, the power went out so no samples could be taken.

All this was part of pattern of harassment, the article noted, that included creepy poltergeist-like incidents where American diplomats would open the doors of their apartments to discover faucets inexplicably turned on, or a cigarette left burning, or human excrement on the floor.

Way back in 2013, when relations between Moscow and Washington were relatively civil, the State Department inspector general complained that U.S. employees in Russia were facing “intensified pressure by the Russian security services at a level not seen since the days of the Cold War.” But, then, Washington generally kept quiet. That the story is coming out now is just one more sign that relations are no longer civil at all. And this week the Cold War vituperation between Moscow and Washington sounded especially bad.