The Cold War seems to be icing over again as Russia and the US jostle for position on the world stage.
The world believed the frozen relationships were thawing when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union broke up.
But the bearish Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin has sought to promote Russian ways at every opportunity.
His planes snubbed the US-led coalition to join outcast president Assad in Syria.
His athletes cheated their way to Olympic success with a government sponsored doping program
Now the cat and mouse games continue with the emergency landing of a US spy plane in Siberia.
Secret technology
The world’s been there before. In the 1960s, Gary Power and his U2 spy in the sky crash landed in a mission over the Soviet Union.
The Americans were horrified that their secret technology was in enemy hands after making elaborate arrangements to blow up the aircraft if such a scenario ever unfurled. It did, but Power could not destroy his plane and was captured.
The bragging Russians paraded him on TV and tried their best to humiliate the Americans as much as possible.
Now a Boeing OC-135B bristling with secret spy technology languishes on the runway at Khabarovsk.
Both sides are huffing and puffing.
The plane was in Russian skies legitimately under an open skies policy, but was due to follow a much different course more than 1,500 miles away.
Russians suspect foul play
Russian officials point out that the jet had to overfly sensitive military manoeuvres to land after reporting undercarriage problems.
In truth, both sides are as bad as each other, only the Russians seems less good at getting away with their incursions.
The open sky treaty allows unarmed surveillance over flights for 34 mainly NATO states over Russia. Russia has similar rights to go into US airspace.
So far, despite the bickering over whether the landing gear fault was real, neither side has acted belligerently.
No doubt the Russians are doing their best to get a peek inside the jet, although they probably already have the specifications on file from clandestine operations in the US.
Either way, this is a chance for Russia and US to act like grown-ups and defrost their relationship for the benefit of everyone.
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