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imageMOSCOW: Russia said on Monday that it will be easier to deal with the incoming new US ambassador than with his "freelance" predecessor who provoked Moscow's wrath with his support for the opposition.

John Tefft, the former US ambassador to Kiev, was approved as Washington's new envoy by Moscow last month. His predecessor, Stanford professor Michael McFaul, quit his post in February only two years into the job.

Tefft is known for his vocal support of the pro-Western aspirations of ex-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow believed he would be "easier" to work with than the man he is replacing.

"He is a career diplomat and in this sense it will probably be easier because such a diplomat does what he is ordered to do," Lavrov told the state news agency ITAR TASS. "When he was an ambassador in Georgia and in Ukraine, he did not play his own games.

"John Tefft is a disciplined man who has worked his entire life in the US State Department therefore he's done what he is ordered to do, unlike his predecessor who was to a large degree a 'freelance artist', a political nominee (who) could take liberties, which he did," he said.

McFaul frequently sparked Russia's fury with critical comments on Twitter and meetings with Russian opposition activists, and Lavrov said Moscow at first had a hard time interpreting his behaviour.

"In the case of Tefft, there won't be such difficulties. All his actions will represent Washington's line, and it will be easier for us to understand what they want in the United States."

In a recent interview with the New Yorker McFaul said he had been informed by a friend two decades ago that Moscow had put together a "top secret" file on him, claiming he worked for the CIA. He dismissed the claim.

Tefft is taking over at a sensitive time, with the two countries locked in a tug-of-war over the fate of ex-Soviet Ukraine where government forces are battling pro-Moscow separatists.

Last month, Washington and Brussels slapped Russia with a new round of sanctions over Moscow's support of rebels in eastern Ukraine, the toughest such measures since the Cold War.

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