THE US vice-president urged confrontation with Russia yesterday just hours after the secretary of state condemned Congress for voting to impose new sanctions on Russia.

The gulf between hawks and doves in President Donald Trump’s government opened up when Vice-President Mike Pence contradicted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s comments made on Tuesday.

In a remarkable press conference, Mr Tillerson said: “The action by the Congress to put these sanctions in place and the way they did, neither the president nor I are very happy about that.”

He acknowledged the “overwhelming” vote — 98 per cent of members of both houses — meant Mr Trump could not use his veto to block the sanctions without being overridden.

“We’ll just work with it,” he said, but: “We can’t let it take us off track of trying to restore the [US-Russia] relationship.” And he warned government officials who opposed Mr Trump’s policy of detente with the Kremlin had “permission to go do something else.”

But speaking in the former Soviet republic of Georgia on Tuesday before flying to Montenegro, Mr Pence said the sanctions were a “further sign of our commitment” to backing regional nations such as Ukraine.

He claimed Mr Trump and Congress were united in demanding Russia “reverse the actions that caused the sanctions to be imposed in the first place.”

And in the former Yugoslav republic yesterday Mr Pence declared: “The future of the western Balkans is in the West,” challenging centuries of ties with Russia.

At a summit of Balkan leaders in Podgorica he said: “Russia continues to seek to redraw international borders by force and here in the western Balkans.

“Russia has worked to destabilise the region, undermining your democracies and divide you from each other and from the rest of Europe,” he added.

“Russia’s intentions were laid bare when Moscow-backed agents sought to disrupt Montenegro’s elections, attack your parliament and even attempt to assassinate your prime minister to dissuade the Montenegrin people from entering the Nato alliance.”