Well more than a decade ago, Hillary Clinton famously flubbed a “reset” in America’s relations with Russia while secretary of state, but the pace with which Moscow is now yanking every chain in the book is quickening to an alarming degree. In addition to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, there is now both a major nuclear arms reduction treaty in limbo and an American journalist languishing in a Moscow jail after being wrongfully detained. 

Against this backdrop it might not come as a surprise that a top Kremlin official just said Russia and America are now in a period of “hot conflict.”

The man who said so is Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov. Speaking to a Russian media outlet with an unmistakable Cold War patina — Sputnik radio — Mr. Ryabkov said: “Now we are at the stage of a heated conflict with the United States. We are seeing this state directly engaging in a hybrid war with Russia in a variety of areas. Some forms of this warfare are simply unprecedented — they simply did not exist and could not exist during the Cold War.”

On one hand those remarks are hardly a surprise, given that Moscow consistently blames America for all the world’s ills, not least of which is the war in Ukraine. Through the paranoid filter of Vladimir Putin, it is no more than a “military operation” undertaken not as wishful conquest but as a corrective action. On the other, the remarks point to an escalation of tensions with far-reaching consequences that are impossible to predict.

The comments are also less inflammatory than the kind of rhetoric that routinely emanates from a former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev. Mr. Medvedev, who currently heads Mr. Putin’s rubber-stamp Security Council and is one of his principle lapdogs in the Kremlin, has previously referred to America’s Western allies as “happily oinking piglets.”

Addressing that council on Wednesday, Mr. Putin blamed acts of sabotage against illegally appointed Russian officials within Ukraine on the West. In a video call to its members, he said: “There are reasons to believe that the capabilities of third countries, Western special services, have been involved in preparation of acts of sabotage and terror attacks.”

It is into this breach that a Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, slipped last Thursday when he was arrested on bogus charges of espionage in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. He is essentially being held hostage at Moscow’s Lefortovo “pre-trial detention center” — in other words, a prison — until May 29, pending an investigation and possible trial on that date. 

Amid a climate of political repression and press censorship reminiscent of the darkest days of Joseph Stalin, Mr. Gershkovich courageously filed informative articles for the Journal about the realities of life in Russia in the months following the country’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

It is from that chasm that he must be presently extricated. Despite Mr. Ryabkov’s coldhearted characterization of relations at present, there are some signs of progress. On Tuesday his lawyers were able to meet him in the Moscow prison for the first time since his detention last week and according to his employer, he is in a sound state healthwise.

In a note to the newspaper’s newsroom the Journal’s editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, said that “Evan’s health is good, and he is grateful for the outpouring of support from around the world. We continue to call for his immediate release.”

Mr. Gershkovich has appealed his arrest. 

The AP reported that earlier this week a Russian state prison monitor said that Mr. Gershkovich was in a quarantine cell while undergoing medical checks, was reading a book from the prison library, and had access to a television set, radio, and refrigerator.

On Tuesday CNN reported that within days the Biden administration will officially designate Mr. Gershkovich as wrongfully detained in Russia. State department officials said the important move follows an ongoing internal review of the circumstances surrounding the reporter’s arrest, officials said. Once the designation is made formally, the network reported, the state department’s office of hostage affairs will then lead American efforts to free Mr. Gershkovich.

In a press briefing, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said that that freeing Mr. Gershkovich is a “priority” for President Biden. Last week the president told reporters that his message to Russia was, “Let him go.”

Doing so will not be easy, but then nothing involving Russia ever is. Yet if Mr. Gershkovich’s capture is part of the hybrid war that appears to be declared by the Russian deputy foreign minister and a form of retaliation against perceived offenses, it adds another dimension to the abysmal state of relations between Washington and Moscow. 

In this dangerous game the stakes are getting higher by the day. Vladimir Putin is a demonstrated liar. He may also be oblivious to Mr. Gershkovich’s plight even if he set the events that led to the young reporter’s unjust incarceration in motion. 

The hope is that President Biden can dial back tensions to the extent necessary to bring some common sense to bear on the Kremlin, and bring Mr. Gershkovich back home. The faster he does, the higher the dividends — both for Mr. Gershkovich’s family and for our badly frayed relations with the belligerent nuclear-armed bear that is Russia.