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Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
and the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
maintain one of the most important, critical and strategic foreign relations in the world. Both nations have shared interests in
nuclear safety and security Nuclear safety is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "The achievement of proper operating conditions, prevention of accidents or mitigation of accident consequences, resulting in protection of workers, the public and the ...
,
nonproliferation Nuclear proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons, fissionable material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information to nations not recognized as " Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Wea ...
,
counterterrorism Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, business, and intelligence agencies use to combat or ...
, and
space exploration Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. While the exploration of space is carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration though is conducted both by uncrewed robo ...
. After the
dissolution of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
, the relationship was generally warm under the Russian President
Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
(1991–99) until the
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an a ...
Реакция России на предстоящую военную операцию НАТО оказалась беспрецедентно резкой
Gazeta.ru, March 24, 1999.
in the spring of 1999, and has since deteriorated significantly. Following
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
regaining control of the Russian government in 2012, relations between the two countries significantly strained due to Russia's annexation of Crimea and
Russian military intervention in Ukraine The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since February 2014. Following Ukraine's Rev ...
. Deterioration continued with the Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War, and over Russia's interference in the
2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...
and
2020 U.S. elections The 2020 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. Democratic presidential nominee, former vice president Joe Biden, defeated incumbent Republican president Donald Trump in the presidential election. Despite losing seats ...
. Following the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. A ...
, relations reached the lowest point since the
Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...
. Mutual sanctions imposed since 2014 were significantly expanded by the U.S. and its allies following the invasion, including several state-owned banks and oligarchs.


Country comparison

Leaders of Russia and the United States from 1992 ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:70 PlotArea = left:80 right:15 bottom:80 top:5 DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Define $start = 01/01/1992 Define $end = 01/11/2020 Period = from:$start till:$end TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:01/01/1995 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:1 start:01/01/1992 Legend = orientation:horizontal position:bottom Colors = id:uru value:powderblue legend:United_Russia id:dem value:skyblue legend:Democratic_Party_(United_States) id:gop value:pink legend:Republican_Party_(United_States) BarData = bar:ru text:
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
bar:us text:
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
PlotData= align:center textcolor:black fontsize:8 mark:(line,black) width:25 bar:ru from: 07/05/2012 till: $end color:uru text:"
Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
" from: 07/05/2008 till: 07/05/2012 color:uru text:" Medvedev" from: 31/12/1999 till: 07/05/2008 color:uru text:"
Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
" from: $start till: 31/12/1999 color:tan1 text:" Yeltsin" bar:us from: 20/01/2020 till: $end color:dem text:" Biden" from: 20/01/2017 till: 20/01/2020 color:gop text:"
Trump Trump most commonly refers to: * Donald Trump (born 1946), 45th president of the United States (2017–2021) * Trump (card games), any playing card given an ad-hoc high rank Trump may also refer to: Businesses and organizations * Donald J. T ...
" from: 20/01/2009 till: 20/01/2017 color:dem text:"
Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
" from: 20/01/2001 till: 20/01/2009 color:gop text:" G.W.Bush" from: 20/01/1993 till: 20/01/2001 color:dem text:" Clinton" from: $start till: 20/01/1993 color:gop text:" G.H.W.Bush"


Background


United States and the Russian Empire

Official contacts between the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...
and the new United States of America began in 1776. Russia, while formally neutral during the
American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
(1765–1783), favored the U.S. There was little trade or migration before the late 19th century. Formal diplomatic ties were established in 1809. In 1863, during the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
(1861–1865), the Russian Navy's Atlantic and Pacific fleets wintered in the American ports of New York and San Francisco, respectively. For many years, a myth persisted that Russia supported the Union against the Confederacy. In fact, Russia was strictly neutral. The myth was invented by the American State Department to mislead the British about American potential strength. Russia operated a small fur-trade operations in
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...
, coupled with missionaries to the natives. By 1861, the project lost money, threatened to antagonize the Americans, and could not be defended from Britain. In the
Alaska Purchase The Alaska Purchase (russian: Продажа Аляски, Prodazha Alyaski, Sale of Alaska) was the United States' acquisition of Alaska from the Russian Empire. Alaska was formally transferred to the United States on October 18, 1867, through a ...
of 1867 it was sold to the United States for $7.2 million, thereby creating a common sea border between the two countries that still exists today. The
Treaty of Portsmouth A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal pers ...
(1905), brokered by American President
Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
ended the
Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
. In the late 19th century, American public opinion was shocked at the accurate reports of murderous anti-Jewish
pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...
s in the Russian Empire (mostly within the
Pale of Settlement The Pale of Settlement (russian: Черта́ осе́длости, '; yi, דער תּחום-המושבֿ, '; he, תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב, ') was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 19 ...
). The sore point was removed when the Russian monarchy was ended in February 1917. The U.S. could enter the World War without becoming an ally of the hated Tsar. From 1820 until 1917, about 3.3 million immigrants arrived in the U.S. from the Russian Empire. Most were Jews, Poles or Lithuanians; only 100,000 were ethnic Russians.


United States and the Soviet Union

The U.S. participated in the allied military intervention against the Bolsheviks during the
Russian Civil War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Russian Civil War , partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I , image = , caption = Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist, *Soldiers ...
since August 1918, operating in the
Russian Far East The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admin ...
. Following the Bolsheviks′ victory in the Civil War and the establishment of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
(USSR) at the end of 1922, the U.S., while developing trade and economic ties, was the last major world power that continued to refuse to formally recognize the Soviet government. The United States and the USSR established diplomatic relations in November 1933. The United States and the Soviet Union, along with Britain, were the leaders of the
Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
against the
Axis powers The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...
during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. Following the onset of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
in 1947, the
North Atlantic Treaty The North Atlantic Treaty, also referred to as the Washington Treaty, is the treaty that forms the legal basis of, and is implemented by, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 194 ...
was signed by the U.S., Canada, and several Western European nations, on April 4, 1949, a treaty that established the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
(NATO) designed to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. The first bilateral treaty between the U.S. and Soviet Russia/USSR was a
consular A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people ...
convention signed in Moscow in June 1964. In 1975, the
Helsinki Final Act The Helsinki Final Act, also known as Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration was the document signed at the closing meeting of the third phase of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland, between ...
was signed by a multitude of countries, including the USSR and the US, and, while not having a binding legal power of a treaty, it effectively signified the U.S.-led West's recognition of the Soviet Union's dominance in
Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
and acceptance of the Soviet annexation of
Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, an ...
,
Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
and
Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
that had been effected in 1940. The Act came to play a role in subsequently ending the Cold War. In the 1970s—1980s, the USSR and the U.S. signed a series of
arms control Arms control is a term for international restrictions upon the development, production, stockpiling, proliferation and usage of small arms, conventional weapons, and weapons of mass destruction. Arms control is typically exercised through the u ...
treaties such as the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty or ABMT) (1972–2002) was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against ballisti ...
(1972), two Strategic Arms Limitation treaties (SALT), the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty, formally the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles; / ДРСМ� ...
(1987); in July 1991 the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was concluded. In the late 1980s,
Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
nations took advantage of the relaxation of
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
control under
General Secretary Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived ...
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Com ...
and began to break away from communist rule. The relationship greatly improved in the final years of the USSR. On December 3, 1989, Soviet general secretary Gorbachev and the U.S. president George H. W. Bush declared the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
over at the
Malta Summit The Malta Summit was a meeting between US President George H. W. Bush and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on December 2–3, 1989, just a few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It followed a meeting that included Ronald Reag ...
. In May 1990, Gorbachev visited the U.S. for talks with President Bush; there, he agreed to allow a reunified Germany to be a part of
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...
. He later revealed that he had agreed to do so because
James Baker James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930) is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House Chief of Staff and 67th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President ...
promised that NATO troops would not be posted to eastern Germany and that the military alliance would not expand into Eastern Europe. Privately, Bush ignored Baker's assurances and later pushed for NATO's eastwards expansion.


History


The dissolution of the Soviet Union through Yeltsin's terms (1991–99)

With Communism defunct, on December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved, and the
Commonwealth of Independent States The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional intergovernmental organization in Eurasia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It covers an area of and has an estimated population of 239,796,010 ...
, a loose association was formed by 12 of the 15 former Soviet constituent republics, leaving out the three
Baltic states The Baltic states, et, Balti riigid or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term, which currently is used to group three countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone ...
. The
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
became Russia. It was now an independent state that inherited the USSR's
UN Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
permanent membership and became the
successor state Succession of states is a concept in international relations regarding a successor state that has become a sovereign state over a territory (and populace) that was previously under the sovereignty of another state. The theory has its roots in 19th- ...
to the USSR.
Strobe Talbott Nelson Strobridge Talbott III (born April 25, 1946) is an American foreign policy analyst focused on Russia. He was associated with '' Time'' magazine, and a diplomat who served as the Deputy Secretary of State from 1994 to 2001. He was presiden ...
, who was Washington's chief expert on Russia, has argued that Clinton hit it off with Russian
Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
, the president of Russia 1991-1999: :The personal diplomacy between Clinton and Yeltsin, augmented by the channel that Gore developed with Yeltsin's longest-serving prime minister,
Victor Chernomyrdin Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin (russian: Ви́ктор Степа́нович Черномы́рдин, ; 9 April 19383 November 2010) was a Soviet and Russian politician and businessman. He was the Minister of Gas Industry of the Soviet Unio ...
, yielded half a dozen major understandings that either resolved or alleviated disputes over Russia's role in the post–cold war world. The two presidents were the negotiators in chief of agreements to halt the sale of Russian rocket parts to India; remove Soviet-era nuclear missiles from Ukraine in exchange for Russian assurances of Ukraine's sovereignty and security; withdraw Russian troops from the Baltic states; institutionalize cooperation between Russia and an expanding NATO; lay the ground for the Baltic states to join the alliance; and ensure the participation of the Russian military in Balkan peacekeeping and of Russian diplomacy in the settlement of NATO's air war against Serbia. Relations between Yeltsin and the administrations of George H. W. Bush (1989–1993) and
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...
(1993–2001) started off well, but deteriorated after 1997. Yeltsin and his foreign minister
Andrey Kozyrev Andrei Vladimirovich Kozyrev (russian: Андре́й Влади́мирович Ко́зырев; born 27 March 1951) is a Russian politician who served as the former and the first Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation under Pres ...
made a high priority Russia's full membership into the family of democratic nations. They wanted to be a partner of the United States. At home they tried to create democratic institutions and a free-market capitalist system. In 1993, both nations signed the
START II START II (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and Russia on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. It was signed by US President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Ye ...
arms control treaty that was designed to ban the use of
multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) is an exoatmospheric ballistic missile payload containing several warheads, each capable of being aimed to hit a different target. The concept is almost invariably associated with i ...
s (MIRVs) on
intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapo ...
s (ICBMs). The treaty was eventually ratified by both countries, yet it was never implemented and was formally abandoned in 2002, following the US's withdrawal from the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty or ABMT) (1972–2002) was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against ballisti ...
. Clinton and Yeltsin were personally friendly. Washington encouraged the rapid transition to a liberal capitalist system in Russia. Clinton provided rich talking points but provided less than $3 billion, and much was paid to American contractors. The Russians—aware of the Marshall Plan in the 1940s—had counted on far larger sums. Real anger was ignited by the rapid expansion of NATO membership in Eastern Europe. With the Cold War over, Russians felt NATO's original role was no longer needed. It feared its dramatic move eastward meant an escalation of NATO's historic role in containment of Russian goals. Russia stridently opposed the U.S.-led NATO military operation against
Serbia and Montenegro Serbia and Montenegro ( sr, Cрбија и Црна Гора, translit=Srbija i Crna Gora) was a country in Southeast Europe located in the Balkans that existed from 1992 to 2006, following the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of ...
over
Kosovo Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a international recognition of Kosovo, partiall ...
that began in March 1999. In December 1999, while on a visit to China, president Yeltsin verbally assailed Clinton for criticizing Russia's tactics in
Chechnya Chechnya ( rus, Чечня́, Chechnyá, p=tɕɪtɕˈnʲa; ce, Нохчийчоь, Noxçiyçö), officially the Chechen Republic,; ce, Нохчийн Республика, Noxçiyn Respublika is a republic of Russia. It is situated in the ...
(at the start of the
Second Chechen War The Second Chechen War (russian: Втора́я чече́нская война́, ) took place in Chechnya and the border regions of the North Caucasus between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, from August 1999 ...
) emphatically stating that Russia remained a nuclear power.


Putin and George W. Bush: 2001–2009

In 2001, in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, the new Russian president
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
quickly announced strong support. Terrorism against Russia was already high on Putin's agenda and he found common ground by supporting the American/NATO invasion of Afghanistan to destroy the
Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...
that had harbored the
Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...
terrorists. By 2002, however, the two countries were escalating their disagreements. Russia became more assertive in international affairs; George W. Bush took an increasingly unilateral course in
foreign policy A state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterally or through ...
. In 2002, the United States withdrew from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty or ABMT) (1972–2002) was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against ballisti ...
in order to move forward with plans for a
missile defense Missile defense is a system, weapon, or technology involved in the detection, tracking, interception, and also the destruction of attacking missiles. Conceived as a defense against nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), ...
system. Putin called the decision a mistake. Russia strongly opposed the 2003
invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...
, though without exercising its veto in the
United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, ...
. Russia has regarded the expansion of
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...
into the old
Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
, and U.S. efforts to gain access to
Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...
n oil and natural gas as a potentially hostile encroachment on Russia's
sphere of influence In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence (SOI) is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military or political exclusivity. While there may be a formal a ...
. The Russian leadership blamed U.S. officials for encouraging anti-Russian revolts during the
Rose Revolution The Rose Revolution or Revolution of Roses ( ka, ვარდების რევოლუცია, tr) was a nonviolent change of power that occurred in Georgia in November 2003. The event was brought about by widespread protests over the ...
in Georgia in 2003 and the
Orange Revolution The Orange Revolution ( uk, Помаранчева революція, translit=Pomarancheva revoliutsiia) was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate afterm ...
in
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...
in 2004. Putin saw intrusions into Russia's historic sphere of interest. Russia condemned the unilateral
declaration of independence of Kosovo The 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence, which proclaimed the Republic of Kosovo to be a state independent from Serbia, was adopted at a meeting held on 17 February 2008 by 109 out of the 120 members of the Assembly of Kosovo, including the ...
from
Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...
in February 2008, stating they "expect the UN mission and NATO-led forces in Kosovo to take immediate action to carry out their mandate ..including the annulling of the decisions of Pristina's self-governing organs and the taking of tough administrative measures against them." Russian President Putin described the recognition of Kosovo's independence by the United States and other Western countries as "a terrible precedent, which will de facto blow apart the whole system of international relations, developed not over decades, but over centuries", and that "they have not thought through the results of what they are doing. At the end of the day it is a two-ended stick and the second end will come back and hit them in the face". In March 2014, Russia used Kosovo's declaration of independence as a justification for recognizing the independence of Crimea, citing the so-called "
Kosovo independence precedent On 17 February 2008, the majority of members of the Assembly of Kosovo, including Hashim Thaçi, and Fatmir Sejdiu (who were not members of the Assembly), not acting in the capacity of PISG, declared Kosovo an independent and sovereign state. ...
". In early 2008, President George W. Bush vowed full support for admitting
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...
and
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...
into NATO, despite Russia's opposition to the further eastward expansion of NATO. Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin warned that any incorporation of Ukraine into NATO would cause a "deep crisis" in
Russia–Ukraine relations There are no diplomatic or bilateral relations between Ukraine and Russia. The two countries have been in a state of war since 24 February 2022. Following the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity in 2014, Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula was occupied by ...
and also negatively affect Russia's relations with the West.


Controversy over U.S. plan to station missiles in Poland (2007–2008)

In March 2007, the U.S. announced plans to build an anti-ballistic
missile defense Missile defense is a system, weapon, or technology involved in the detection, tracking, interception, and also the destruction of attacking missiles. Conceived as a defense against nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), ...
installation in Poland along with a radar station in the
Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
. Both nations were former
Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republi ...
members and both had repudiated Communism and Russian interference. U.S. officials said that the system was intended to protect the United States and Europe from possible nuclear missile attacks by Iran or North Korea. Russia, however, viewed the new system as a potential threat and, in response, tested a long-range
intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapo ...
, the
RS-24 The RS-24 Yars (РС-24 Ярс– ракета стратегическая (strategic missile)) - modification 24) also known as RT-24 Yars or Topol'-MR (russian: PC-24 «Ярс», NATO reporting name: SS-29 or SS-27 Mod 2) is a Russian MIRV-e ...
, which it claimed could defeat any defense system. Putin warned the U.S. that these new tensions could turn Europe into a powder keg. On June 3, 2007, Putin warned that if the United States built the missile defense system, Russia would consider targeting missiles at Poland and the Czech Republic. In October 2007, Vladimir Putin visited Iran to discuss Russia's aid to Iran's nuclear power program and "insisted that the use of force was unacceptable." On October 17, Bush stated "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," understood as a message to Putin. A week later, Putin compared U.S. plans to put up a missile defense system near Russia's border as analogous to when the Soviet Union deployed missiles in Cuba, prompting the
Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...
. In February 2008, Vladimir Putin said Russia might have to retarget some of its missiles towards the missile defense system: "If it appears, we will be forced to respond appropriately – we will have to retarget part of our systems against those missiles." He also said that missiles might be redirected towards Ukraine if they went ahead with plans to build NATO bases within their territory, saying that "We will be compelled to aim our missiles at facilities that we consider a threat to our national security, and I am putting this plainly now so that the blame for this is not shifted later," In July 2008, Russia announced that if a U.S. anti-missile shield was deployed near the Russian border, it would have to react militarily. The statement from the Russian foreign ministry said, "If an American strategic anti-missile shield starts to be deployed near our borders, we will be forced to react not in a diplomatic fashion but with military-technical means." Later, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations
Vitaly Churkin Vitaly Ivanovich Churkin ( rus, Вита́лий Ива́нович Чу́ркин, p=vʲɪˈtalʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ ˈtɕurkʲɪn; 21 February 1952 – 20 February 2017) was a Russian diplomat and former child actor. Churkin served as Russia ...
said that "military-technical means" did not mean military action, but more likely a change in Russia's strategic posture, perhaps by redeploying its own missiles. On August 14, 2008, the U.S. and Poland agreed to have 10 two-stage missile interceptors – made by
Orbital Sciences Corporation Orbital Sciences Corporation (commonly referred to as Orbital) was an American company specializing in the design, manufacture, and launch of small- and medium- class space and launch vehicle systems for commercial, military and other governmen ...
– placed in Poland, as part of a missile shield to defend Europe and the U.S. from a possible missile attack by Iran. In return, the U.S. agreed to move a battery of
MIM-104 Patriot The MIM-104 Patriot is a surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, the primary of its kind used by the United States Army and several allied states. It is manufactured by the U.S. defense contractor Raytheon and derives its name from the radar comp ...
missiles to Poland. The missile battery was to be staffed – at least temporarily – by U.S. Military personnel. The U.S. also pledged to defend Poland, a
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...
member, quicker than NATO would in the event of an attack. Additionally, the Czech Republic recently agreed to allow the placement of a radar-tracking station in their country, despite public opinion polls showing that the majority of Czechs were against the plans and only 18% supported it. The radar-tracking station in the Czech Republic would also be part of the missile defense shield. After the agreement was announced, Russian officials said defences on Russia's borders would be increased and that they foresaw harm in bilateral relations with the United States. In November 2008, a day after Obama was elected president, Russian president
Dmitry Medvedev Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev ( rus, links=no, Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев, p=ˈdmʲitrʲɪj ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mʲɪdˈvʲedʲɪf; born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician who has been serving as the dep ...
in his first annual address to the
Federal Assembly of Russia The Federal Assembly ( rus, Федера́льное Собра́ние, r=Federalnoye Sobraniye, p=fʲɪdʲɪˈralʲnəjə sɐˈbranʲɪjə) is the national legislature of the Russian Federation, according to the Constitution of the Russian F ...
announced plans to deploy Iskander short-range missiles to
Kaliningrad Kaliningrad ( ; rus, Калининград, p=kəlʲɪnʲɪnˈɡrat, links=y), until 1946 known as Königsberg (; rus, Кёнигсберг, Kyonigsberg, ˈkʲɵnʲɪɡzbɛrk; rus, Короле́вец, Korolevets), is the largest city and ...
, near the border with Poland, if the United States went ahead with its European Ballistic Missile Defense System.


Russian-Georgian clash (August 2008)

In August 2008, United States-Russia bilateral relations became further strained, when Russia and
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...
fought a
five-day war The 2008 Russo-Georgian WarThe war is known by a variety of other names, including Five-Day War, August War and Russian invasion of Georgia. was a war between Georgia, on one side, and Russia and the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of Sou ...
over the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of
South Ossetia South Ossetia, ka, სამხრეთი ოსეთი, ( , ), officially the Republic of South Ossetia – the State of Alania, is a partially recognised landlocked state in the South Caucasus. It has an officially stated populat ...
and
Abkhazia Abkhazia, ka, აფხაზეთი, tr, , xmf, აბჟუა, abzhua, or ( or ), officially the Republic of Abkhazia, is a partially recognised state in the South Caucasus, recognised by most countries as part of Georgia, which ...
. President Bush said to Russia, "Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century."


Obama administration (2009–2017)


"Reset" under Obama and Medvedev (2009–11)

Despite U.S.–Russia relations becoming strained during the Bush administration, Russian president
Dmitry Medvedev Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev ( rus, links=no, Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев, p=ˈdmʲitrʲɪj ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mʲɪdˈvʲedʲɪf; born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician who has been serving as the dep ...
(president from May 2008 until May 2012, with Vladimir Putin as head of government) and U.S. president
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
struck a warm tone at the 2009 G20 summit in London and released a joint statement that promised a "fresh start" in Russia–United States relations. The statement also called on
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
to abandon its nuclear program and to permit foreign inspectors into the country. In March 2009, U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton and her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov symbolically pressed a "reset" button. The gag fell short as the Russian translation on the button was misspelt by the State Department and actually meant "overload" instead of "reset". After making a few jokes, they decided to press the button anyway. In early July 2009, Obama visited Moscow where he had meetings with president Medvedev and prime minister Putin. Speaking at the New Economic School Obama told a large gathering, "America wants a strong, peaceful and prosperous Russia. This belief is rooted in our respect for the Russian people, and a shared history between our nations that goes beyond competition." Days after president Obama's visit to Moscow, U.S. vice president Joe Biden, noting that the U.S. was "vastly underestimat ngthe hand that th d", told a U.S. newspaper that Russia, with its population base shrinking and the economy "withering", would have to make accommodations to the West on a wide range of national-security issues. Biden's words, published shortly after his visit to Ukraine and Georgia, were interpreted by
George Friedman George Friedman ( hu, Friedman György, born February 1, 1949) is a Hungarian-born U.S. geopolitical forecaster, author, and strategist on international affairs. He is the founder and chairman of ''Geopolitical Futures'', an online publication t ...
of
Stratfor Strategic Forecasting Inc., commonly known as Stratfor, is an American geopolitics publisher and consultancy founded in 1996. Stratfor's business model is to provide individual and enterprise subscriptions to Stratfor Worldview, its online public ...
as "reaffirm ngthe U.S. commitment to the principle that Russia does not have the right to a sphere of influence in these countries or anywhere in the former Soviet Union"; Friedman pointed up a fundamental error in the analysis that underlay such thinking and predicted, "We suspect the Russians will squeeze back hard before they move off the stage of history". In March 2010, the United States and Russia reached an agreement to reduce their stockpiles of
nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
s. The new nuclear arms reduction treaty (called
New START New START ( Russian abbrev.: СНВ-III, ''SNV-III'' from ''сокращение стратегических наступательных вооружений'' "reduction of strategic offensive arms") is a nuclear arms reduction treaty betwee ...
) was signed by President Obama and President Medvedev on April 8, 2010. The agreement cut the number of long-range nuclear weapons held by each side to about 1,500, down from the current 1,700 to 2,200 set by the Moscow Treaty of 2002. The New START replaced the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expired in December 2009. On a visit to Moscow in March 2011, U.S. vice president Joe Biden reiterated Washington's support for Russia's accession to the
World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and ...
; he also had a meeting with Russia's leading
human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
and opposition leaders where he reportedly told the gathering at the U.S. ambassador's Spaso House residence that it would be better for Russia if Putin did not run for re-election in 2012. Through 2020, this was the only time Biden and Putin had met. After an official group meeting Biden characterized in his memoir as "argumentative," he and Putin met privately, with Biden saying "Mr. Prime Minister, I'm looking into your eyes," (a reference to a 2001 meeting between Putin and President Bush, who later said "I looked the man in the eye...I was able to get a sense of his soul"). Biden continued, "I don't think you have a soul." Putin replied, "We understand each other." Biden was elected president in 2020. The
2011 military intervention in Libya On 19 March 2011, a multi-state NATO-led coalition began a military intervention in Libya, to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, in response to events during the First Libyan Civil War. With ten votes in favour and ...
prompted a widespread wave of criticism from several world leaders, including Russian President Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Putin, who said that " UNSC_Resolution_1973.html" ;"title="United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973">UNSC Resolution 1973">United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973">UNSC Resolution 1973/nowiki> is defective and flawed...It allows everything. It resembles medieval calls for crusades." At the start of the mass protests that began in Russia after the legislative election in early December 2011, prime minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States of interference and inciting unrest, specifically saying that secretary of state Hillary Clinton had sent "a signal" to "some actors in our country"; his comments were seen as indication of a breakdown in the Obama administration's effort to "reset" the relationship. By 2012, it was clear that a genuine reset never happened and relations remained sour. Factors in the West included traditional mistrust and fear, an increasing drift away from democracy by Russia, and a demand in Eastern Europe for closer political, economic and military integration with the West. From Russia factors included a move away from democracy by Putin, expectations of regaining superpower status and the tactic of manipulating trade policies and encouraging divisions within NATO.


Increasing Tensions during Putin's Third Term (2012–2015)

In mid-September 2013, the United States and Russia made a
deal A deal, or deals may refer to: Places United States * Deal, New Jersey, a borough * Deal, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * Deal Lake, New Jersey Elsewhere * Deal Island (Tasmania), Australia * Deal, Kent, a town in England * Deal, a ...
whereby Syria's
chemical weapons A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as a ...
would be placed under international control and eventually destroyed; President Obama welcomed the agreement that was shortly after enshrined in the
UNSC The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
Resolution 2118. The Obama administration was criticised for having used the chemical weapons deal as an ineffectual substitute for military action that Obama had promised in the event of use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government. In George Robertson's view, as well as many others', the failure of Obama to follow through on his 2013 "red line" and take promised military action badly hurt his credibility and that of the United States with Putin and other world leaders. Obama acknowledged Russia's role in securing the
deal A deal, or deals may refer to: Places United States * Deal, New Jersey, a borough * Deal, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * Deal Lake, New Jersey Elsewhere * Deal Island (Tasmania), Australia * Deal, Kent, a town in England * Deal, a ...
to limit
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
's nuclear program that was reached in July 2015, and personally thanked Putin for Russia's role in the relevant negotiations. In May 2012, Russian general Nikolay Yegorovich Makarov said that there was a possibility of a preemptive strike on
missile defense Missile defense is a system, weapon, or technology involved in the detection, tracking, interception, and also the destruction of attacking missiles. Conceived as a defense against nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), ...
sites in
Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
, to apply pressure to the United States regarding Russia's demands. In July 2012, two
Tu-95 Bear The Tupolev Tu-95 (russian: Туполев Ту-95; NATO reporting name: "Bear") is a large, four-engine turboprop-powered strategic bomber and missile platform. First flown in 1952, the Tu-95 entered service with the Long-Range Aviation of the ...
s were intercepted by
NORAD North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection ...
fighters in the air defense zone off the U.S. coast of Alaska, where they may have been practicing the targeting of
Fort Greely Fort Greely is a United States Army launch site for anti-ballistic missiles located about southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska. It is also the home of the Cold Regions Test Center (CRTC), as Fort Greely is one of the coldest areas in Alaska, and can ...
and
Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg may refer to: * Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name * USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in Key West, Florida * Vandenberg Sp ...
. Later in August 2012, it was revealed that an had conducted a patrol within the
Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...
without being detected, raising alarms of the U.S. Navy's
anti-submarine warfare Anti-submarine warfare (ASW, or in older form A/S) is a branch of underwater warfare that uses surface warships, aircraft, submarines, or other platforms, to find, track, and deter, damage, or destroy enemy submarines. Such operations are typ ...
capabilities. On December 14, 2012, U.S. President Barack Obama signed the
Magnitsky Act The Magnitsky Act, formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, is a bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in ...
, which " mposedU.S. travel and financial restrictions on human rights abusers in Russia". On December 28, 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a
bill Bill(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States) * Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature * Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer * Bill, a bird or animal's beak Pla ...
, widely seen as retaliatory, that banned any United States citizen from adopting children from Russia. On February 12, 2013, hours before the 2013 State of the Union Address by U.S. president Obama, two Russian Tu-95 Bear strategic bombers, reportedly equipped with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, circled the U.S. territory of
Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...
. Air Force F-15 jets based on
Andersen Air Force Base Andersen Air Force Base (Andersen AFB, AAFB) is a United States Air Force base This is a list of installations operated by the United States Air Force located within the United States and abroad. Locations where the Air Force have a notable ...
were scrambled to intercept the aircraft. The Russian aircraft reportedly "were intercepted and left the area in a northbound direction." At the end of 2013, Russia announced that a rearmament of the
Kozelsk Kozelsk (russian: Козе́льск) is a town and the administrative center of Kozelsky District in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Zhizdra River (Oka's tributary), southwest of Kaluga, the administrative center of the oblast. Popula ...
, Novosibirsk, Tagil Rocket divisions with advanced
RS-24 Yars The RS-24 Yars (РС-24 Ярс– ракета стратегическая (strategic missile)) - modification 24) also known as RT-24 Yars or Topol'-MR (russian: PC-24 «Ярс», NATO reporting name: SS-29 or SS-27 Mod 2) is a Russian MIRV-e ...
intercontinental ballistic missiles was going ahead. In July 2014, the U.S. government formally accused Russia of having violated the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty by testing a prohibited medium-range ground-launched
cruise missile A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warh ...
(presumably R-500, a modification of Iskander) and threatened to retaliate accordingly. Concern in the U.S. was also caused by the test-firing in 2014 of the Russian
RS-26 Rubezh The RS-26 Rubezh (in Russian language, Russian: ''РС-26 Рубеж'') (''frontier'' or ''boundary'', also known under the name of its research and development, R&D program Avangard (hypersonic glide vehicle), Avangard ''Авангард'') SS-X- ...
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapo ...
capable of evading the existing anti-ballistic
missile defense Missile defense is a system, weapon, or technology involved in the detection, tracking, interception, and also the destruction of attacking missiles. Conceived as a defense against nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), ...
s. In early June 2015, the
U.S. State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...
reported that Russia had failed to correct the violation of the I.N.F. Treaty; the U.S. government was said to have made no discernible headway in making Russia so much as acknowledge the compliance problem.


Edward Snowden affair (2013)

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...
, a contractor for the United States government, copied and released hundreds of thousands of pages of secret U.S. government documents. He fled to Hong Kong, and then to Russia where in July 2013 he was granted
political asylum The right of asylum (sometimes called right of political asylum; ) is an ancient juridical concept, under which people persecuted by their own rulers might be protected by another sovereign authority, like a second country or another entit ...
. He was wanted on a criminal warrant by U.S. prosecutors for theft of government property and espionage. The granting of asylum further aggravated relations between the two countries and led to the cancellation of a meeting between Obama and Putin that was scheduled for early September 2013 in Moscow. Snowden remains in Russia as of December 2022.


Russian Annexation of Crimea (2014)

Following the
collapse Collapse or its variants may refer to: Concepts * Collapse (structural) * Collapse (topology), a mathematical concept * Collapsing manifold * Collapse, the action of collapsing or telescoping objects * Collapsing user interface elements ** ...
of the
Viktor Yanukovych Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych ( uk, Віктор Федорович Янукович, ; ; born 9 July 1950) is a former politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 until he was removed from office in the Revolution of D ...
government in
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...
in February 2014, Russia annexed
Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a p ...
on the basis of a controversial
referendum A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a Representative democr ...
held on March 16, 2014. The U.S. had submitted a UN Security Council resolution declaring the referendum illegal; it was vetoed by Russia on March 15 with China abstaining and the other 13 Security Council members voting for the resolution. In 2016, in a court in Moscow, former top Ukrainian officials of the Yanukovich administration testified that the collapse of the government was, in their opinion, a
coup d'état A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
organized and sponsored by the U.S. government. Russian newspaper
Kommersant ''Kommersant'' (russian: Коммерсантъ, , ''The Businessman'' or Commerce Man, often shortened to Ъ) is a nationally distributed daily newspaper published in Russia mostly devoted to politics and business. The TNS Media and NRS Russia ...
alleges
George Friedman George Friedman ( hu, Friedman György, born February 1, 1949) is a Hungarian-born U.S. geopolitical forecaster, author, and strategist on international affairs. He is the founder and chairman of ''Geopolitical Futures'', an online publication t ...
(chairman of
Stratfor Strategic Forecasting Inc., commonly known as Stratfor, is an American geopolitics publisher and consultancy founded in 1996. Stratfor's business model is to provide individual and enterprise subscriptions to Stratfor Worldview, its online public ...
) had agreed this was the "most blatant coup in history', which George Friedman says was taken out of context. U.S. secretary of state John Kerry in early March 2014 answering the press questions about Russia's moves in Crimea said, "This is an act of aggression that is completely trumped up in terms of its pretext. It's really 19th century behavior in the 21st century, and there is no way, to start with, that if Russia persists in this, that the G8 countries are going to assemble in Sochi. That's a starter."Interview With David Gregory of NBC's Meet the Press
March 2, 2014.
On March 24, 2014, the U.S. and its allies in the G8 political forum suspended Russia's membership thereof. The decision was dismissed by Russia as inconsequential. At the end of March 2014, U.S. president Obama ruled out any Western military intervention in Ukraine and admitted that Russia's annexation of Crimea would be hard to reverse; however, he dismissed Russia as a "regional power" that did not pose a major security threat to the U.S. In January 2016, when asked for his opinion of Obama's statement, Putin said, "I think that speculations about other countries, an attempt to speak disrespectfully about other countries is an attempt to prove one's
exceptionalism Exceptionalism is the perception or belief that a species, country, society, institution, movement, individual, or time period is " exceptional" (i.e., unusual or extraordinary). The term carries the implication, whether or not specified, that the ...
by contrast. In my view, that is a misguided position." In November 2016, the president of the
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
Jean-Claude Juncker Jean-Claude Juncker (; born 9 December 1954) is a Luxembourgish politician who served as the 21st Prime Minister of Luxembourg from 1995 to 2013 and 12th President of the European Commission from 2014 to 2019. He also served as Finance Minister ...
said this of the statement of Obama: "We have a lot to learn about the depths of Russia, we are very ignorant about it at the moment. I would like to have discussions on a level footing with Russia. Russia is not, as President Obama said, 'a regional power'. This was a big error in assessment." As unrest spread into eastern Ukraine in the spring of 2014, relations between the U.S. and Russia further worsened. The U.S. government imposed punitive sanctions for Russia's activity in Ukraine. After one bout of sanctions announced by President Obama in July 2014 targeting Russia's major energy, financial and defence companies, Russia said the sanctions would seriously harm the bilateral ties relegating them to the 1980s
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
era. From March 2014 to 2016, six rounds of sanctions were imposed by the US, as well as by the EU, and some other countries allied to the U.S. The first three rounds targeted individuals close to Putin by freezing their assets and denying leave to enter. Russia responded by banning import of certain food products as well as by banning entry for certain government officials from the countries that imposed sanctions against Russia. The end of 2014 saw the passage by the US of the
Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014 Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014 () is a United States law enacted by the 113th Congress to address the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Ukraine Freedom Support Act () was introduced in the Senate by Senator Bob Menendez on September 1 ...
, aimed at depriving certain Russian state firms of Western financing and technology while also providing $350 million in arms and military equipment to Ukraine, and the imposition by the US president's
executive order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of t ...
of yet another round of sanctions. Due to the situation concerning Ukraine, relations between Russia and the U.S. that denounced Russia's actions were in 2014 said to be at their worst since the end of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
. As vice president, Joe Biden urged the Ukrainian government to reduce the nation's reliance on imports of Russian natural gas, and to eliminate pro-Russia middlemen such as
Dmitry Firtash Dmytro Vasylovych Firtash ( uk, Дмитро́ Васи́льович Фі́рташ; born 2 May 1965) is a Ukrainian businessman who heads the board of directors of Group DF. He was highly influential during the Yuschenko administration and th ...
from the country's natural gas industry.


Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War (from September 30, 2015)

Shortly after the start of the Syrian Civil War in the spring of 2011, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Syria's government and urged president
Bashar al-Assad Bashar Hafez al-Assad, ', Levantine pronunciation: ; (, born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the ...
to resign; meanwhile, Russia, a long-standing ally of Syria, continued and increased its support for the Syrian government against rebels backed up by the U.S. and its regional allies. On September 30, 2015, Russia began the air campaign in Syria on the side of the Syrian government headed by president
Bashar al-Assad Bashar Hafez al-Assad, ', Levantine pronunciation: ; (, born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the ...
of
Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
. According to Russian foreign minister
Sergey Lavrov Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov (russian: Сергей Викторович Лавров, ; born 21 March 1950) is a Russian diplomat and politician who has served as the Foreign Minister of Russia since 2004. Lavrov served as the Permanent Represe ...
's statement made in mid-October 2015, Russia had invited the U.S. to join the Baghdad-based
information center A visitor center or centre (see American and British English spelling differences), visitor information center, tourist information center, is a physical location that provides tourist information to visitors. Types of visitor center A visit ...
set up by Iran, Iraq, Syria and Russia to coordinate their military efforts, but received what he called an "unconstructive" response; Putin's proposal that the U.S. receive a high-level Russian delegation and that a U.S. delegation arrive in Moscow to discuss co-operation in Syria was likewise declined by the U.S. In early October 2015, U.S. president Obama called the way Russia was conducting its military campaign in Syria a "recipe for disaster"; top U.S. military officials ruled out military cooperation with Russia in Syria. Secretary of Defense
Ashton Carter Ashton Baldwin Carter (September 24, 1954 – October 24, 2022) was an American government official and academic who served as the 25th United States Secretary of Defense from February 2015 to January 2017. He later served as director of the Be ...
and other senior U.S. officials said Russia's campaign was primarily aimed at propping up Assad, whom U.S. president Barack Obama had repeatedly called upon to leave power. Three weeks into the Russian campaign in Syria, on October 20, 2015, Russian president Vladimir Putin met Bashar Assad in Moscow to discuss their joint military campaign and a future political settlement in Syria, according to the Kremlin report of the event. The meeting provoked a sharp condemnation from the White House. While one of the original aims of the Russian leadership may have been normalisation of the relationship with the U.S. and the West at large, the resultant situation in Syria was said in October 2015 to be a
proxy war A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors, one or both of which act at the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities. In order for a conflict to be considered a p ...
between Russia and the U.S. The two rounds of the Syria peace talks held in Vienna in October and November 2015, with Iran participating for the first time, highlighted yet again the deep disagreement over the Syrian settlement between the U.S. and Russia, primarily on the issue of
Bashar Assad Bashar Hafez al-Assad, ', Levantine pronunciation: ; (, born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the S ...
's political future. The talks in Vienna were followed by a bilateral meeting of Obama and Putin on the sidelines of the
G-20 Summit The following list of G20 summits summarizes all G20 conferences held at various different levels: summits of heads of state or heads of government, ministerial-level meetings, Engagement Group meetings and others. Summits of state leaders ...
in Turkey, during which a certain consensus between the two leaders on Syria was reported to have been reached."G20: Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin agree to Syrian-led transition"
''The Guardian'', November 16, 2015.
Bilateral negotiations over Syria were unilaterally suspended by the U.S on October 3, 2016, which was presented as the U.S. government's reaction to a re-newed offensive on Aleppo by Syrian and Russian troops. On the same day Putin signed a decree that suspended the 2000
Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement The Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement is an agreement between the United States and Russia signed in 2000, wherein both nations agreed to dispose of significant fractions of their "excess" (beyond what they need for their nuclear weapon ...
with the U.S. (the relevant law was signed on October 31, 2016), citing the failure by the U.S. to comply with the provisions thereof as well as the U.S.' unfriendly actions that posed a "threat to strategic stability." In mid-October 2016, Russia's U.N. ambassador
Vitaly Churkin Vitaly Ivanovich Churkin ( rus, Вита́лий Ива́нович Чу́ркин, p=vʲɪˈtalʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ ˈtɕurkʲɪn; 21 February 1952 – 20 February 2017) was a Russian diplomat and former child actor. Churkin served as Russia ...
, referring to the international situation during the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, said that tensions with the U.S. are "probably the worst since 1973". After two rounds of fruitless talks on Syria in
Lausanne , neighboring_municipalities= Bottens, Bretigny-sur-Morrens, Chavannes-près-Renens, Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Crissier, Cugy, Écublens, Épalinges, Évian-les-Bains (FR-74), Froideville, Jouxtens-Mézery, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Lugrin (FR ...
and London, the foreign ministers of the U.S. and the UK said that additional sanctions against both Russia and Syria were imminent unless Russia and the "Assad regime" stopped their air campaign in Aleppo.


Trump administration (2017–2021)


Election of Donald Trump and Russian interference

In mid-November 2016, shortly after the election of Trump as the U.S. president, the Kremlin accused president Barack Obama's administration of trying to damage the U.S.' relationship with Russia to a degree that would render normalization thereof impossible for Trump's incoming administration. In his address to the Russian parliament delivered on December 1, 2016, Russian president Putin said this of U.S.—Russia relations: "We are prepared to cooperate with the new American administration. It's important to normalize and begin to develop bilateral relations on an equal and mutually beneficial basis. Mutual efforts by Russia and the United States in solving global and regional problems are in the interest of the entire world." In early December 2016, the White House said that President Obama had ordered the intelligence agencies to review evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign; Eric Schultz, the deputy White House press secretary, denied the review to be led by Director of National Intelligence
James R. Clapper James Robert Clapper Jr. (born March 14, 1941) is a retired lieutenant general in the United States Air Force and former Director of National Intelligence. Clapper has held several key positions within the United States Intelligence Community. H ...
was meant to be "an effort to challenge the outcome of the election". Simultaneously, the U.S. press published reports, with reference to senior administration officials, that U.S. intelligence agencies, specifically the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
, had concluded with "high confidence" that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton's chances and promote Donald Trump. President-elect Donald Trump rejected the CIA assessment that Russia was behind the hackers' efforts to sway the campaign in his favour as "ridiculous". In mid-December 2016, Hillary Clinton suggested that Putin had a personal grudge against her due to her criticism of the
2011 Russian legislative election Legislative elections were held in Russia on 4 December 2011. At stake were the 450 seats in the 6th State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly (the legislature). United Russia won the elections with 49.32% of the vote, taking 238 se ...
and his opinion that she was responsible for fomenting the anti-Putin protests in Russia that began in December 2011. She partially attributed her loss in the 2016 election to Russian meddling organized by Putin. Among her presidential campaign's Russia policy advisors were Richard Lourie. Also in mid-December, President Obama publicly pledged to retaliate for Russian cyberattacks during the U.S. presidential election in order to "send a clear message to Russia" as both a punishment and a deterrent,; however, the press reported that his actionable options were limited, with many of those having been rejected as either ineffective or too risky; ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', citing a catalogue of U.S.-engineered coups in foreign countries, opined, "There is not much new in tampering with elections, except for the technical sophistication of the tools. For all the outrage voiced by Democrats and Republicans in the past week about the Russian action — with the notable exception of Mr. Trump, who has dismissed the intelligence findings as politically motivated — it is worth remembering that trying to manipulate elections is a well-honed American art form." The
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 (; NDAA 2017Pub.L. 114-328 is a United States federal law specifying the budget and expenditures of the United States Department of Defense (DOD) for Fiscal Year 2017. History ''Nation ...
signed into law by president Obama on December 23, 2016, was criticised by the Russian foreign ministry as yet another attempt to "create problems for the incoming Trump administration and complicate its relations on the international stage, as well as to force it to adopt an anti-Russia policy." At the end of 2016, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump praised Putin for not expelling U.S. diplomats in response to Washington's expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats as well as other punitive measures taken by the Obama administration in retaliation for what U.S. officials had characterized as interference in the U.S. presidential election. On January 6, 2017, the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence The director of national intelligence (DNI) is a senior, cabinet-level United States government official, required by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to serve as executive head of the United States Intelligence Comm ...
(ODNI), in an assessment of “Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”, asserted that Russian leadership favored presidential candidate Trump over Clinton, and that Putin personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's chances and "undermine public faith in the US democratic process". Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort admitted he was in contact with Russian operatives and sharing information through the campaign.


2017

A week after Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017,
Trump Trump most commonly refers to: * Donald Trump (born 1946), 45th president of the United States (2017–2021) * Trump (card games), any playing card given an ad-hoc high rank Trump may also refer to: Businesses and organizations * Donald J. T ...
had a 50-minute telephone conversation with Russian president
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
that was hailed by both governments as a step towards improvement of relations between the U.S. and Russia; the presidents agreed to arrange a face-to-face meeting for a later date. In early March 2017, the U.S. military for the first time publicly accused Russia of having deployed a land-based cruise missile (
SSC-8 The Novator RK-55 ''Relief'' (russian: РК-55 Рельеф 'Relief'; NATO: SSC-X-4 'Slingshot'; GRAU: 3K12) is a Russian land-based and submarine-launched cruise missile with a nuclear warhead developed in the Soviet Union. It was about to ente ...
) that they said violated the "spirit and intent" of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and posed a threat to NATO. On March 25, 2017, the U.S. imposed new sanctions against eight Russian companies in connection with the
Iran, North Korea, Syria Nonproliferation Act The Iran, North Korea, Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA), also known as the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000, is an act of the 109th United States Congress. The act was first called the Iran Nonproliferation Act. In 2005, Syria was added, and in ...
(INKSNA). The cruise-missile strikes on the Syrian
Shayrat Airbase Shayrat Airbase is home to the Syrian Air Force 50th Air Brigade located in Homs. It has two runways and around 40 hardened aircraft shelters. Squadrons The brigade consists of three fighter squadrons: * 675th Fighter Squadron ( MIG-23s) * 677t ...
, conducted by the U.S. on April 7, 2017, as a response to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, were condemned by Russia as an "act of aggression" that was based on a "trumped-up pretext", which substantially impaired Russia–United States relations. Russian prime minister
Dmitry Medvedev Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev ( rus, links=no, Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев, p=ˈdmʲitrʲɪj ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mʲɪdˈvʲedʲɪf; born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician who has been serving as the dep ...
said the attack had placed the U.S. on the cusp of warfare with Russia. Both Donald Trump in April and the Russian government in May characterised the relationship between the countries as frozen and lacking any progress; in early June, Vladimir Putin said relations were at an all-time low since the end of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
. In mid-June 2017, the Russian foreign ministry confirmed that, for the first time ever, Russia had failed to receive a formal greeting from the U.S. government on occasion of Russia's national day celebrated on June 12. In April 2017, Trump's administration denied a request from
ExxonMobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 3 ...
to allow it to resume oil drilling in Russia. In July 2017, ExxonMobil filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government challenging the finding that the company violated sanctions imposed on Russia. On May 10, 2017, Trump had an unannounced meeting in the
Oval Office The Oval Office is the formal working space of the President of the United States. Part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, it is located in the West Wing of the White House, in Washington, D.C. The oval-shaped roo ...
with Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov (russian: Сергей Викторович Лавров, ; born 21 March 1950) is a Russian diplomat and politician who has served as the Foreign Minister of Russia since 2004. Lavrov served as the Permanent Represe ...
and Russian Ambassador to the United States
Sergey Kislyak Sergey Ivanovich Kislyak ( rus, Серге́й Ива́нович Кисля́к, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ kʲɪˈslʲak; born 7 September 1950) is a Russian senior diplomat and politician. Since September 2017, he has represented Mo ...
. During the meeting he disclosed highly classified information, providing details that could have been used to deduce the source of the information and the manner in which it was collected, according to current and former government officials. Although the disclosure was not illegal, it was widely criticized because of the possible danger to the source. On July 6, 2017, during a speech in
Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...
,
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
, Trump urged Russia to cease its support for "hostile regimes" in
Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
and
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. On July 7, 2017, in what appeared to be a sign of good relations between the leaders of both countries, Trump met with Putin at the G20 Hamburg summit in Germany and described the meeting as "an honour." In mid-July 2017, the Russian foreign ministry noted that the staff of the
U.S. Embassy in Moscow The Embassy of the United States of America in Moscow is the diplomatic mission of the United States of America in the Russian Federation. The current embassy compound is in the Presnensky District of Moscow, across the street from the White Ho ...
, following expulsion of diplomats by the Obama administration in December 2016, far exceeded the number of Russian embassy employees in Washington and indicated that the Russian government was considering retaliatory expulsion of more than thirty-five U.S. diplomats, thus evening out the number of the countries' diplomats posted. On July 28, Russia announced punitive measures that were cast as Russia's response to the additional, codified, sanctions against Moscow passed by Congress days prior, but also referenced the specific measures imposed against the Russian diplomatic mission in the U.S. by the Obama administration.Заявление Министерства иностранных дел Российской Федерации
Russian Foreign Ministry, July 28, 2017.
Russia demanded that the U.S. reduce its diplomatic and technical personnel in the Moscow embassy and its consulates in St Petersburg, Ekaterinburg and Vladivostok to four hundred fifty-five persons — the same as the number of Russian diplomats posted in the U.S. — by September 1; Russia's government would also suspend the use of a retreat compound and a storage facility in Moscow used by the U.S. by August 1.Russia expels US diplomats in tit-for-tat over sanctions
FT, July 28, 2017.
Two days later, Vladimir Putin said that the decision on the curtailment of the U.S. diplomatic mission personnel had been taken by him personally and that 755 staff must terminate their work in Russia. After the sanction bill was on August 2 signed by Donald Trump, Russian prime minister
Dmitry Medvedev Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev ( rus, links=no, Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев, p=ˈdmʲitrʲɪj ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mʲɪdˈvʲedʲɪf; born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician who has been serving as the dep ...
wrote that the law had ended hope for improving U.S.–Russia relations and meant "an all-out trade war with Russia." The law was also criticised by Donald Trump, whose
signing statement A signing statement is a written pronouncement issued by the President of the United States upon the signing of a bill into law. They are usually printed along with the bill in '' United States Code Congressional and Administrative News'' (USCCAN) ...
indicated that he might choose not to enforce certain provisions of the legislation that he deemed unconstitutional.Trump Signs Russian Sanctions Into Law, With Caveats
The New York Times, August 2, 2017.
Statement by President Donald J. Trump on the Signing of H.R. 3364
The White House, August 2, 2017.
Russia protested on September 2, 2017, against a search it said U.S. officials were planning of a Russian trade mission building in Washington D.C., shortly after the U.S., ″in the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians″, demanded that Russia shut two of its diplomatic annexes (buildings) in Washington D.C. and New York City as well as its
Consulate General A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people ...
in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
. The Russian foreign ministry said the inspection would be "illegal" and an "unprecedented aggressive action"; it also demanded that the U.S. ″immediately return the Russian diplomatic facilities″. In November 2017, Trump and Putin both attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Danang. Although they had no formal meeting they spoke informally several times during the event. At the end of 2017, CNN concluded that a series of steps undertaken by the Trump administration within a mere week before Christmas such as naming Russia a "rival power" and ″revisionist power″ (along with China), imposing sanctions on Ramzan Kadyrov, a close Putin ally, the decision to provide Ukraine with anti-tank weapons, coupled with tougher line from the State Department about Moscow's activities in eastern Ukraine, and accusations from the Pentagon that Russia was intentionally violating de-confliction agreements in Syria, highlighted "a decided turn away from the warmer, more cooperative relationship with Russia that President Donald Trump called for during his campaign and early in his presidency". In February 2018, echoing Donald Trump's own statement, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: "[President Donald Trump] has been tougher on Russia in the first year than Obama was in eight years combined."


Beginning of Putin's fourth term (2018–2020)

A highly unusual unannounced visit to Washington D.C. at the end of January 2018 by the directors of Russia's Intelligence agencies of Russia, three main intelligence and security agencies (Federal Security Service, FSB, Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia), SVR, and GRU), two of whom (Sergey Naryshkin and Igor Korobov) were on the U.S. sanctions list, and their reported meetings with top U.S. security officials caused political controversy in the U.S. and elicited no official comment in Russia, while it occurred days before the Trump administration chose not to impose immediately new sanctions on Russia at the deadline mandated by the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. The Battle of Khasham, U.S. air and artillery strike on a pro-government formation in eastern Syria on February 7, 2018, which caused massive death toll among Russian nationals and a political scandal in Russia, was billed by media as "the first deadly clash between citizens of Russia and the United States since the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
" and "an episode that threatens to deepen tensions with Moscow".Russian mercenary boss spoke with Kremlin before attacking US forces in Syria, intel claims
The Telegraph, February 23, 2018.
Public statements read out by Vladimir Putin on March 1, 2018, days before the 2018 Russian presidential election, presidential election, about missile technology breakthroughs made by Russia, were referred to by the Trump administration officials as largely boastful untruths, as well as confirmation that "Russia ha[d] been developing destabilizing weapons systems for over a decade, in direct violation of its treaty obligations". U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis remarked that the systems Putin had talked about "[were] still years away" and he did not see them changing the military balance. Nevertheless, White House insiders were later quoted as saying that Putin's claims "really got under the president [Trump]'s skin" and caused Trump to take a sharper tone behind the scenes vis-à-vis Vladimir Putin. On March 26, 2018, following the United States National Security Council's recommendation, to demonstrate the U.S.'s support for the UK's position on the Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Salisbury poisoning incident, president Donald Trump ordered the expulsion of sixty Russian diplomats and closure of Russian consulate in Seattle. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov responded to the simultaneous expulsion of the total of 140 Russian diplomats by 25 countries by accusing the U.S. government of "blackmailing" other nations. In April 2018, US-Russian relations were further exacerbated by 2018 missile strikes against Syria, missile strikes against the Syrian government targets following the Douma chemical attack, suspected chemical attack in Douma on April 7. The countries clashed diplomatically, with Russia's top military officials threatening to hit U.S. military targets in the event of a massive U.S.-led strike against Syria. In late May, during an interview with Russia Today, RT, Syria's president
Bashar al-Assad Bashar Hafez al-Assad, ', Levantine pronunciation: ; (, born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the ...
said that direct military conflict between the Russian forces and the U.S. forces in Syria had been averted in April "by the wisdom of the Russian leadership" and that the US-led missile attack against Syria would have been far more extensive had it not been for Russia's intervention. On June 8, 2018, Trump called for Russia to be readmitted to the Group of Seven, G-7, from which it was expelled after the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Trump's public statements during his 2018 Russia–United States summit, first formal meeting with Putin in Helsinki on July 16, 2018, drew criticism from the Democratic members of the U.S. Congress and a number of former senior intelligence officials as well as some ranking members of the Republican party for appearing to have sided with Putin rather than accepting the findings of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election issued by the United States Intelligence Community. Republican senator John McCain called the press conference "one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory." The press around the world ran publications that tended to assess the news conference following the presidents′ two-hour meeting as an event at which Trump had "projected weakness". In December 2019, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on businesses involved in the construction of Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, as the U.S. sought to sell more of its own liquefied natural gas (LNG) to European states. German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz called the sanctions "a severe intervention in German and European internal affairs", while the EU spokesman criticized "the imposition of sanctions against EU companies conducting legitimate business." Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov (russian: Сергей Викторович Лавров, ; born 21 March 1950) is a Russian diplomat and politician who has served as the Foreign Minister of Russia since 2004. Lavrov served as the Permanent Represe ...
also criticized sanctions, saying that United States Congress, U.S. Congress "is literally overwhelmed with the desire to do everything to destroy" the U.S.–Russia relations. A June 2020 ''New York Times'' report, citing unnamed sources, stated that American intelligence officials assessed with medium confidence that Russian military intelligence unit Unit 29155, 29155 had Russian bounty program, supervised a bounty program paying
Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...
-linked militants to kill foreign servicemembers, including Americans, in Afghanistan in 2019. The bounty program reportedly resulted in the deaths of "several" U.S. soldiers, but The Pentagon's top leaders said that Russian bounty program has not been corroborated. The Taliban and Russia have both denied that the bounty program exists. President Donald Trump and his aides denied that he was briefed on the intelligence. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe (American politician), John Ratcliffe said that Trump had not received a briefing on the bounty program. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the same. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said that General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, and General Austin S. Miller, Scott Miller, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, did not think "the reports were credible as they dug into them." McKenzie said that he found no "causative link" between reported bounties to actual U.S. military deaths, but said a lack of proof is "often true in battlefield intelligence." On July 1, 2020, following media reports of Taliban participation in an alleged Russian bounty program, the U.S. United States House Committee on Armed Services, House Armed Services Committee overwhelmingly voted in favor of an amendment to restrict President Trump's ability to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. On September 25, 2020, U.S. Air Force Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, B-52 bombers staged a mock attack run on
Kaliningrad Kaliningrad ( ; rus, Калининград, p=kəlʲɪnʲɪnˈɡrat, links=y), until 1946 known as Königsberg (; rus, Кёнигсберг, Kyonigsberg, ˈkʲɵnʲɪɡzbɛrk; rus, Короле́вец, Korolevets), is the largest city and ...
, a Russian exclave locked between NATO countries. The simulated raid on the Kaliningrad Oblast, Kaliningrad region was a test case of destroying Russian air defense systems located in the region.


Influence on the Trump Administration

Shortly before the inauguration of President Trump, the Steele dossier was leaked to the public. Written by a Christopher Steele, private intelligence firm claiming to unearth a relationship between his Donald Trump's presidential campaign, presidential campaign and the Russian government, the report alleged that the Russians possessed kompromat on Trump which could be used to blackmail him. It suggested the Kremlin had promised the campaign that compromising information would not be released if the Administration cooperated. Though the report was met with skepticism, the relationship between Russian leadership and the incoming Trump Administration became highly salient. Days later, Ynet, an Israeli online news site, reported that U.S. intelligence had advised Israeli Intelligence Community, Israeli intelligence officers to be cautious about sharing information with the Presidential transition of Donald Trump, incoming Trump administration until the possibility of Russian influence over Trump had been fully investigated. Allegations of collusion between Trump associations and the Russian government continued to emerge well into his presidency. Various administration officials' Links between Trump associates and Russian officials, close ties with Russia have been documented and heavily scrutinized, most notably former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's United States v. Flynn#Contacts with the Russian ambassador, public statements about these, contacts with the Russian ambassador. Throughout his presidential tenure, Trump expressed both support and criticism of Russia's actions in Crimea, Syria, Ukraine, North Korea, Venezuela, election meddling, Skripal poisoning, and oil drilling in Russia. Despite extensive investigation into the dossier's claims, they remain Mueller report, unverified, and many considere the allegations to be a conspiracy theory. Trump's actions at the 2018 Russia–United States summit, Helsinki summit in 2018 led some to conclude that Steele's report was more accurate than not. Politico reported, "Trump sided with the Russians over the U.S. intelligence community's assessment that Moscow had waged an all-out attack on the 2016 election...The joint news conference cemented fears among some that Trump was in Putin's pocket and prompted bipartisan backlash." At the joint news conference, when asked directly about the subject, Putin denied that he had any kompromat on Trump. Trump was reportedly given a gift from Putin the weekend of the pageant, though Putin argued "that he did not even know Trump was in Russia for the Miss Universe 2013, Miss Universe pageant in 2013 when, according to the Steele dossier, video of Trump was secretly recorded to blackmail him." In reaction to Trump's actions at the summit, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke in the Senate: Several operatives and lawyers in the U.S. intelligence community reacted strongly to Trump's performance at the summit, describing it as "subservien[ce] to Putin" and "a fervent defense of Russia's military and cyber aggression around the world, and its violation of international law in Ukraine". Some framed Trump's conduct as harmful to U.S. interests and an asset to Russian interests, suggesting that he was a "useful idiot" to Putin, and that he looked like "Putin's puppet". Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wondered "if Russians have something on Trump", and former CIA director John O. Brennan accused Trump of treason, tweeting: "He is wholly in the pocket of Putin." In January 2019, former acting CIA director Michael Morell called Trump "an unwitting agent of the Russian federation", echoing the sentiments of former CIA director Michael Hayden (general), Michael V. Hayden. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested then-President Trump's behavior was part of a pattern: "All roads lead to Putin."


Biden administration (2021–present)

Following the arrest of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on January 17, 2021, Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security adviser, stated: "Mr. Navalny should be immediately released, and the perpetrators of the outrageous attack on his life must be held accountable. The Kremlin's attacks on Mr. Navalny are not just a violation of human rights, but an affront to the Russian people who want their voices heard." On the day of Biden's inauguration, Russia urged the new administration to take a "more constructive" approach in talks over the extension of the New START, 2010 New START treaty, accusing the Trump administration of "deliberately and intentionally" dismantling international arms control agreements and attacking its "counterproductive and openly aggressive" approach in talks. On January 26, Biden and Putin agreed that they would extend by five years the New START treaty, which would otherwise have expired in February 2021. On 17 March 2021, the Russian foreign ministry announced that Russia had recalled List of ambassadors of Russia to the United States, its ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, for "consultations" in a move that was characterized by the ministry's spokesperson as being without precedent for a Russia ambassador to the U.S. The recall came after Biden said he thought that Putin was "a killer" and said he would "pay the price" for the Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections, interference in the 2020 U.S. election, which had been confirmed by a declassified Director of National Intelligence, DNI Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections#The 2021 DNI report, report released the previous day. The State Department commented on the recall by saying that while the U.S. would work with Russia to advance U.S. interests, they would "be able to hold Russia accountable for any of their malign actions". On April 15, the U.S. announced the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats and imposed sanctions on six Russian technology companies as well as 32 other individuals and entities. The new sanctions also targeted OFZ (bond), ruble-denominated sovereign debt. Nevertheless, the economic punishments were assessed by observers as "more bark than bite" and likely to be "largely symbolic", with the ruble even rebounding against the dollar on the news. Biden commented the United States "could have gone further" with the sanctions, but that he had opted for a milder form of sovereign-debt sanctions for now because he wanted to avoid a “cycle of escalation and conflict." Russia retaliated the following day, expelling 10 U.S. diplomats and suggesting the John J. Sullivan (diplomat), U.S. ambassador return home for consultations. On May 19, the Presidency of Joe Biden, Biden administration lifted sanctions on the Nord Stream#Nord Stream 2, Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that was being built between Russia and Germany. While Joe Biden believed the project was bad, the U.S. State Department explained it had concluded that it was in the "U.S. national interest" to waive the sanctions. In May 2021, Biden and Putin agreed to meet as the relationship between the countries was being assessed to be at the lowest point since the 1980s. At the 2021 Russia–United States summit, meeting in Geneva in mid-June, the countries′ leaders reached an agreement to return their ambassadors to their posts in each other's capitals, no progress was made in overcoming the major points of contention. On August 21, The Department of State imposed increased sanctions on Russia for alleged poisoning of Alexei Navalny. These sanctions include a ban on ammo imports into the United States, as well as restrictions of Small arms trade, Small Arm sales. On 1 December 2021, Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Russia), Foreign Ministry told US diplomats who have been working in Moscow for more than three years, to leave the country by 31 January 2022. The move came in response to news on 28 November 2021 that the US would be expelling 27 Russian diplomatic staff by the end of January 2022.


2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis

In late 2021 and early 2022, Russian troops build up along the Russo-Ukrainian border, resulted in renewed tensions between Russia and NATO. Senior officials of the Presidency of Joe Biden, Biden administration reported that Russia had only withdrawn a few thousand troops since the previous military buildup in early 2021. ''The New York Times'' estimated over 80,000 Russian troops still remain at the Russo-Ukrainian border by September 2021. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied that it has any plans to invade Ukraine. On 30 November 2021, Putin stated that an Enlargement of NATO, expansion of NATO's presence in Ukraine, especially the deployment of any Ballistic missile, long-range missiles capable of striking Russian cities or United States national missile defense, missile defence systems similar to those in Romania and Poland, would be a "red line" issue for the Kremlin. Putin asked President Joe Biden for legal guarantees that NATO wouldn't expand eastward or put "weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to Russian territory." The U.S. rejected Putin's demands. Biden and Putin discussed the crisis over the course of a 50-minute phone call on December 30, 2021. Bilateral talks began in Geneva on 10 January 2022, to discuss the crisis in Ukraine as well as longstanding Russians concerns regarding NATO postering in Eastern Europe. The talks were led by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. On January 31, 2022 both the United States and Russia discussed the crisis at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. The discussion was tense, with both sides accusing the other of stoking tensions. The United States government increased military support to Ukraine through a $650 million arms deal. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley threatened U.S. support for an anti-Russian insurgency within Ukraine. The Biden administration approved deliveries of American-made FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine. The government threatened severe sanctions against Russia as well as personal sanctions against Putin and his allies. The United States also threatened to halt the opening of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would send Russian natural gas to Germany, "if Russia invades Ukraine one way or another." In January 2022, the United States accused Russia of sending Sabotage, saboteurs into Ukraine to stage "a false-flag operation" that would create a pretext for Russia to invade Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov (russian: Сергей Викторович Лавров, ; born 21 March 1950) is a Russian diplomat and politician who has served as the Foreign Minister of Russia since 2004. Lavrov served as the Permanent Represe ...
dismissed the U.S. claim as "total disinformation." On 4 February 2022, Lavrov dismissed as "nonsense" and "craziness" allegations by the United States that Russia was preparing a fake video of the Ukrainian forces attacking the separatist-held Donbas as a pretext for starting a war in Ukraine. On 19 January 2022, President Biden said that he believed Russia would invade Ukraine. Biden said a full-scale invasion of Ukraine would be "the most consequential thing that's happened in the world in terms of war and peace" since
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy disagreed on how imminent the threat was. On 10 February 2022, Biden urged all American citizens in Ukraine to leave immediately. On 11 February 2022, Biden's national security advisor Jake Sullivan publicly warned about the likelihood of a Russian invasion of Ukraine prior to the end the 2022 Winter Olympics. The Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll, conducted on 7–26 July 2021, found that 50% of Americans supported the use United States Armed Forces, U.S. troops to defend Ukraine if Russia invaded the rest of the country. In December 2021, a Levada Center poll found that about 50% of Russians believed that the U.S. and NATO were responsible for the Russo-Ukrainian crisis, while 16% blamed Ukraine and just 4% blamed Russia. In February 2022, according to the White House, US President Joe Biden stated in a video conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin that if Russia invades Ukraine, Washington and its allies will respond "decisively and impose fast and severe penalties." On February 16, 2022, the US State Department stated that Russia is seeking to establish a "pretext" for invading Ukraine by making unsubstantiated claims of "genocide" and mass graves in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. On February 20, 2022, the US secretary of state showed his concern about the continuation of Russian military drills in Belarus. According to Antony Blinken, Moscow's decision to keep roughly 30,000 troops in Belarus, near to Ukraine, amid increased tensions in the east justifies US's concerns. On February 22, 2022, US President Joe Biden criticized Russia's International recognition of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic, recognition of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic as "the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine" and announced sanctions against on banks VEB and Promsvyazbank and comprehensive sanctions on Russia's sovereign debt in response.


Russian invasion of Ukraine and increased tensions

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine opening fire with explosive ordinance and hitting several residential buildings, by the 25th the invading army had taken all of the Chernobyl exclusion zone and began to attack the Ukrainian capital with high resistance from both the Ukrainian military and a makeshift militia. On February 26, President Joe Biden authorized the US State Department to deliver up to $350 million in weapons from US stockpiles to Ukraine. President Joe Biden rejected the idea of a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine. On February 26, 2022, the deputy head of Russia's Security Council chaired by President Vladimir Putin, warned that Moscow may retaliate to Western sanctions by withdrawing from the most recent nuclear arms treaty with the US, severing diplomatic ties with Western nations, and freezing their assets. On February 28, 2022, the U.S., during a meeting with the U.N., asked the Russian ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, to remove 12 Russian diplomats from the U.S. under claims of abuse of power. On March 4, 2022, the United States and its allies strongly denounced Russia at the United Nations on Friday for shelling and seizing Europe's largest nuclear power facility overnight in Ukraine, and some insisted that Moscow not allow such an action to happen again. On March 13, 2022, President Biden's National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan warned of a full-fledged
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...
response if Russia were to hit any part of NATO territory. The poll, conducted by NPR/Ipsos between 18–21 March 2022, found that only 36% of Americans approved the Presidency of Joe Biden, Biden administration's response to the invasion. On April 28, 2022, President Biden asked Congress for an additional $33 billion dollars to assist Ukraine, including $20 billion to provide weapons to Ukraine. On July 6, 2022, the speaker of the Russian Parliament threatened the US about the possible "Alaska Purchase, return" of Alaska to
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
. On September 21, 2022, President Putin warned the US and NATO during his 2022 Russian mobilization, partial mobilization speech regarding Russia's ability to use nuclear weapons, stating that if Russia's "territorial integrity" was threatened, Russia would "certainly make use of all weapon systems available" to them.


Russian and U.S. intelligence operations

Soviet Union's systemic espionage efforts in the U.S. began in the 1920s. In April 2015, CNN reported that "Russian hackers" had "penetrated sensitive parts of the White House" computers in "recent months." It was said that the FBI, the Secret Service, and other U.S. intelligence agencies categorized the attacks "among the most sophisticated attacks ever launched against U.S. government systems." In 2017, a cybersecurity specialist working in the Federal Security Service was arrested by Russian authorities on suspicion of passing information to U.S. intelligence. In June 2019, Russia said that its Electricity sector in Russia, electrical grid has been under cyber-attack by the United States. The ''New York Times'' reported that American hackers from the United States Cyber Command planted malware potentially capable of disrupting the Russian electrical grid.


Mutual perceptions by the countries' populations

A poll by the University of Maryland, College Park, released early July 2009 found that only 2 percent of Russians had "a lot of confidence" that U.S. president
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
would do the right thing in world affairs. Russian media has criticized the United States over the past years for pursuing an National missile defense#Recent developments, anti-missile system in Europe, for favoring Enlargement of NATO, NATO expansion and for supporting 2008 Georgia-Russia War, Georgia in its armed conflict with Russia in 2008. Prior to 2014, the Russian press expressed varying opinions of Russia–United States relations. Russian media treatment of America ranged from doctrinaire and nationalistic to very positive toward the United States and the West. In 2013, 51 percent of Russians had a favorable view of the U.S., down from 57 percent in 2010. The opinion polls taken by the independent Levada Center in January 2015, showed 81 percent of Russians tended to hold negative views of the U.S., a number that had nearly doubled over the previous 12 months and that was by far the highest negative rating since the center started tracking those views in 1988, as well as surpassing any time since the Stalin era, according to observers. This contrasts with only 7 percent of Russians in April 1990 who said they had bad or somewhat bad attitudes towards the U.S. Likewise, the figures published by Gallup (company), Gallup in February 2015 showed a significant rise in anti-Russian sentiment in the U.S.: the proportion of Americans who considered Russia as a "critical military threat" had over the 12 months increased from 32 to 49 percent, and, for the first time in many years, Russia topped the list of America's perceived external enemies, ahead of North Korea, China and Iran, with 18 percent of U.S. residents putting Russia at the top of the list of the "United States' greatest enemy today". Public opinion polls taken by the Pew Research Center showed that favorable U.S. public opinion of Russia was at 22 percent in 2015. The most negative view of Russia was at 19 percent in 2014, and the most positive view at 49 percent in 2010 and 2011. The most negative view of the United States was at 15 percent in 2015, while the most positive view was at 61 percent in 2002. US public opinion regarding Russia has changed substantially over the past 25 years. A Gallup poll from 1992 to 2017 shows 62% of American respondents having a favorable view of Russia in 1992, and 29% having an unfavorable view. In 2017, 70% of American respondents had an unfavorable view of Russia, and 28% had a favorable view. A poll conducted by YouGov in 2015 found that only 11% of Americans believed that the Soviet Union contributed most to the Eastern Front (World War II), defeat of Nazi Germany in
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. A 2017 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center showed 41% of Russians had a positive view of the US, only one of two countries surveyed where positive perception for the US increased; 52% expressed a negative view. The same study also showed 53% of Russians had confidence in the U.S. president Donald Trump, compared to just 11% for former president
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
. There has also been a change in whether the Americans views Russia as an ally or a threat. In 1992, 44% of American respondents saw Russia to be friendly but not an ally, and 5% see them as a threat. In 2014, the Gallup poll reports that 21% of Americans see Russia as friendly but not an ally, and 24% of American respondents seeing them as a threat. This difference in how Americans view Russia has been attributed to the increasing lack of cooperation in the scientific field between the US and Russia, by some. Another perspective is the shift from ally to threat is due to the US being critical of Russia's aggression, especially with their aggression towards geographic neighbors, the United States being one of those neighbors, as it shares a common sea border with the Russian Federation and the US State of Alaska. The 2016 surveys independently conducted by the Chicago Council of Global Affairs, Chicago Council and Russia's Levada Center showed that mutual perceptions between Russians and Americans were at levels not seen since the Cold War, indicating considerable mutual distrust.  U.S.–Russian relations have further deteriorated since 2016. A December 2017 survey conducted by the Chicago Council and its Russian partner, the Levada Center, showed that: A Levada poll released in August 2018 found that 68% of Russian respondents believe that Russia needs to dramatically improve relations with the United States and other Western countries. According to ''The Moscow Times'', "Russians increasingly view the United States in a positive light following a presidential" 2018 Russia–United States summit, summit in Helsinki in July 2018. "For the first time since 2014, the number of Russians who said they had “positive” feelings towards the United States (42 percent) outweighed those who reported “negative” feelings (40 percent)." The 2019 poll independently conducted by the Chicago Council and Levada Center found that 85% of Russians and 78% of Americans say the United States and Russia are "more rivals than partners." The president of the Center for Citizen Initiatives, Sharon Tennison, stated in 2019, "In my 35 years of traveling throughout Russia, I’ve never before witnessed such a vast gap between what average Americans ‘believe’ about Russia and Russia's reality on ground today." A Levada poll released in February 2020 found that 80% of Russian respondents believe that Russia and the West should become friends and partners. However, only 42% of Russians polled said they had a positive view of the United States. Only 18% of Americans polled by Pew Research Center said they had a positive view of Russia. According to the Pew Research Center, "57% of Russians ages 18 to 29 see the U.S. favorably, compared with only 15% of Russians ages 50 and older." In 2019, only 20% of Russians viewed U.S. President Donald Trump positively. Only 14% of Russians expressed net approval of Presidency of Donald Trump, Donald Trump's policies.


Propaganda

*The U.S. government funds Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that broadcasts in 26 languages to many countries. The radio's broadcasting is viewed by Russian researchers as an instrument of American propaganda targeting Russia as a state. According to ''The Intercept'', some American media have been accused of spreading anti-Russian propaganda." *Russia funds RT (TV network), Russia Today and Sputnik (news agency), Sputnik News which have been accused of pushing pro-Kremlin narratives internationally. In 2021, the Russian state media budget was 211 billion rubles (about $2.8 billion USD), an increase of 34 billion-ruble ($460 million USD) over previous years. According to a University of Oxford report, Moscow uses RT "to sow conspiracy theories to cast doubt on traditional media outlets" and "skewing news output to promote narratives that showed the West as corrupt, divided and out of touch." The influence operation also extends to US allies. RT and Sputnik were cited by the European Parliament's resolution of November 23, 2016 as the Russian government's tools of "propaganda against the EU and its North American partners" such as pushing narratives against democratic values and portraying eastern countries as failed states. The RT America network has employed Americans, including TV hosts and political commentators such as Larry King and Ed Schultz, to help them appear more like a legitimate outlet. Jim Rutenberg described them "wittingly or not... playing the equestrians to Russia's trojan horse."


Timeline of relations between the United States and Russia

The timeline covers key events, 1991 to present.


Yeltsin era, 1991–99

* 1991: U.S. president George H. W. Bush and USSR president
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Com ...
sign START I treaty, July 31. * 1991: August: Soviet hardliners stage a coup against Gorbachev; they fail because of defiance by Russian president
Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
. Communism collapses overnight in the USSR. * 1991: Gorbachev announces the dissolution of the USSR into 15 independent republics; Russia is the successor state to USSR. * 1992: Russian president Yeltsin visits the U.S. on January 26. He and Bush set up the United States–Russia Joint Commission on P.O.W./M.I.A.'s. Its mission is to discover what happened to POWs and those missing in action during the Cold War, as well as planes shot down, missing submarines. The committee had access to classified archives from the FBI and the KGB. * 1992: The Lisbon Protocol calls for the denuclearization of Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan. May 23. * 1992: Russia attends the Washington Summit on June 16. * 1992: The United States and Russia sign an Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes on June 17. * 1993: Bush and Yeltsin sign the
START II START II (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and Russia on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. It was signed by US President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Ye ...
treaty in Moscow on January 3. * 1993: First summit meeting between U.S. president Bill Clinton and Yeltsin on April 4 in Vancouver, Canada, to discuss a new and expanded $1 billion aid package intended to support Russian democrats and to fund medical supplies, food and grain assistance as well as loans to Russian entrepreneurs. * 1993: The U.S. announces a bilateral aid program of $1.8 billion for Russia and the former Soviet republics on July 9 to 10. * 1993: The U.S.–Russian Commission on technical cooperation in energy and space has its first meeting in Washington, D.C. on August 31 to September 2. * 1994: Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin sign the Kremlin accords on January 14 in Moscow. * 1994: First joint U.S.–Russia Space Shuttle mission on February 3. * 1994: The United States and Russia move to end the practice of aiming their strategic nuclear missiles at each other on May 30. * 1994: Russia joins the Partnership for Peace program on June 22. * 1995: Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin hold a summit on European Security in Moscow on May 9 to May 10. * 1995: Russia joins the NATO-led Implementation Force, IFOR in the aftermath of the Bosnian War on December 20. * 1996: Ratification of
START II START II (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and Russia on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. It was signed by US President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Ye ...
treaty on January 26. * 1996: Clinton and Yeltsin attend the Summit of the Peacemakers in Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt to condemn the terrorist attacks in Israel and to declare their support for the Middle East peace process on March 14. * 1996: Clinton attends a Summit on Nuclear Safety and Security with Yeltsin in Moscow on April 20. * 1997: Russia joins the NATO-led Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council to cooperate on political and security issues on January 1. * 1997: Clinton and Yeltsin hold another summit on European Security in Helsinki, Finland, on March 21. They reach some economic agreements, but there is continued disagreement on NATO expansion. * 1997: April. Moscow summit with Chinese president Jiang Zemin disapproves of American world domination; agree to reduce troops along Russia-China border. * 1997: Russia attends the NATO summit in Paris, France, on May 27. * 1997: The NATO-Russia Founding Act provides the formal basis of bilateral cooperation between the U.S., Russia and NATO is signed on May 27. Allows participation in NATO decision making; Russia agrees to drop opposition to NATO expansion in Central Europe. * 1997: Russia joins the G8 at the 23rd G8 summit in Denver, Colorado, on June 20 to June 22. * 1998: Clinton and Yeltsin agree to exchange information on missile launchings and to remove 50 metric tons of plutonium from their countries' nuclear weapons stocks in a summit in Moscow on September 1 to 2. * 1999: Russia joins the NATO-led Kosovo Force, KFOR in the aftermath of the Kosovo War on June 12. * 1999: March: Operation Allied Force: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia to force it out of Kosovo. Moscow attacked it as a breach of international law and a challenge to Russia's status in the Balkans. * 1999: Clinton and Yeltsin meet at an Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe Summit Meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, from November 18–19, to discuss arms control, Chechnya and events in Europe. Clinton remarks that the international community does not dispute Russia's right to defend its territorial integrity and to fight terrorism.


Putin era, 2000 to present

* 2000: Clinton visits Moscow to meet with new Russian president
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
on June 3 to 5. * 2000: Clinton and Putin meet at the Millennium Summit, United Nations Millennium Summit in New York City to call a plea for world peace on September 6. * 2001: President George W. Bush has a very friendly meeting with Putin at the Slovenia Summit 2001, Slovenia summit on June 16. At the closing press conference, Bush said: "I looked the man in the eye. I found him very straightforward and trustworthy – I was able to get a sense of his soul." Bush's top security aide Condoleezza Rice realized that Bush's phrasing had been a serious mistake. "We were never able to escape the perception that the president had naïvely trusted Putin and then been betrayed." * 2001: Russia supports the U.S. in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on September 12. * 2001: Russia opens a military hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, to help the NATO military forces and Afghan civilians on December 2. * 2002: Bush and Putin meet in Moscow and sign the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty and declaration on a new strategic relationship between the U.S. and Russia on May 24. * 2002: NATO and Russia create the NATO-Russia Council during 2002 Rome summit, Rome summit on May 28. * 2003: The "Roadmap for Peace" proposal developed by the U.S. in cooperation with Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations (the Quartet), was presented to Israel and the Palestinian Authority on April 30. * 2003: Russia strongly condemns the United States in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and calls for a peaceful solution to the crisis. * 2004: Bush gives condolences to Putin in the aftermath of the Beslan school hostage crisis on September 21. * 2006: Bush and Putin jointly announced the organization of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism on July 16. * 2006: The U.S. and Russia condemn North Korea's first nuclear launch test on October 6. * 2008: Russian president
Dmitry Medvedev Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev ( rus, links=no, Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев, p=ˈdmʲitrʲɪj ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mʲɪdˈvʲedʲɪf; born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician who has been serving as the dep ...
visits the U.S. for the first time at the 2008 G-20 Washington summit, 2008 G-20 summit in Washington D.C. from November 14 to November 15. * 2009: February: US vice president Joe Biden suggests the new Obama administration would like to "reset" America's relationship with Russia, which had deteriorated to its lowest point since the Cold War after Russia's war with Georgia in 2008.Brad Plumer, "A short timeline of deteriorating U.S.-Russia relations,
''Washington Post'' August 8, 2013
/ref> * 2009: Newly elected president
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
and Medvedev meet for the first time at the 2009 G-20 London Summit, G-20 Summit in London on April 1; they pledge to "deepen cooperation" on issues like nuclear terrorism.Plumer, "A short timeline of deteriorating U.S.-Russia relations," ''Washington Post'' August 8, 2013. * 2009: The U.S. and Russia disapprove the nuclear test by North Korea on May 25. * 2009: Obama and Medvedev announce the Obama–Medvedev Commission to improve communication and cooperation between the U.S. and Russia in Moscow on July 6. * 2009: U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and Russian chief of the general staff Nikolay Yegorovich Makarov, Nikolay Makarov sign a new strategic framework for military-to-military engagement between the U.S. and Russia on July 7. * 2009: Obama administration cancels the eastern European missile defense program denounced by Russian. * 2009: Russia agrees to allow U.S. and NATO troops and supplies to pass through Russia en route to Afghanistan on December 16. * 2010: Obama and Medvedev sign
New START New START ( Russian abbrev.: СНВ-III, ''SNV-III'' from ''сокращение стратегических наступательных вооружений'' "reduction of strategic offensive arms") is a nuclear arms reduction treaty betwee ...
treaty in Prague, Czech Republic, to replace the START I and it will eventually see the reduction of both nations' nuclear arsenals to 1,500 warheads for both the U.S. and Russia on April 8. * 2010: The U.S. and Russia call for Iran to give up on its nuclear weapons program along with the United Kingdom, France and China on June 9. * 2010. Obama and Medvedev sign the "
New START New START ( Russian abbrev.: СНВ-III, ''SNV-III'' from ''сокращение стратегических наступательных вооружений'' "reduction of strategic offensive arms") is a nuclear arms reduction treaty betwee ...
" (New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty". Goal is to reduce the deployed nuclear warheads on both sides by roughly 30 percent, down to 1,550. The treaty also limits the number of nuclear-armed submarines and bombers. New START went into force in February 2011. * 2010: The U.S. and Russia conduct a joint anti-hijacking exercise called Vigilant Eagle-2010 on August 14. * 2010: Foreign ministers from the U.S., Russia and NATO meet in New York to discuss areas of cooperation like Afghanistan, fighting piracy and combatting terrorism as well as ways of enhancing security within Europe on September 22. * 2010: Medvedev attends the 2010 Lisbon summit, 2010 NATO summit in Portugal, from November 19 to November 20. The U.S., Russia and NATO agree to cooperate on missile defense and other security issues as well as allowing more supplies for the U.S. and NATO to pass through Russia en route to Afghanistan as well as supplying Afghan Armed Forces, Afghan armed forces with helicopters. * 2011: The
New START New START ( Russian abbrev.: СНВ-III, ''SNV-III'' from ''сокращение стратегических наступательных вооружений'' "reduction of strategic offensive arms") is a nuclear arms reduction treaty betwee ...
treaty is ratified in Munich, Germany, by U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Russian foreign minister
Sergey Lavrov Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov (russian: Сергей Викторович Лавров, ; born 21 March 1950) is a Russian diplomat and politician who has served as the Foreign Minister of Russia since 2004. Lavrov served as the Permanent Represe ...
on February 5. * 2011: Ministers from the U.S., Russia and NATO meet in Berlin, Germany to discuss the situation in Libya and Afghanistan, as well as ongoing work on outlining the future framework for missile defence cooperation between the U.S., Russia and NATO on April 15. * 2011: Russia congratulates the U.S. on the Death of Osama bin Laden, killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2. * 2011–present: Syrian Civil War; the government receives technical, financial, military and political support from Russia, while the U.S. favors some of the rebels. Russia provides diplomatic support in the United Nations as well. Russia has an interest in a military presence in the region, and in suppressing its own Muslim militants. It also rejects regime change imposed by the West. * 2011: American, Russian and NATO ambassadors meet in Sochi, Russia, to restate their commitment to pursuing cooperation on missile defense as well as cooperation in other security areas of common interest on July 4. * 2011: American, Russian and NATO diplomats meet in New York to announce they have made progress in combating terrorism and enhancing Afghan transit on September 22. * 2012: Russia agrees to host a U.S. and NATO transit hub at Ulyanovsk Vostochny Airport, Ulyanovsk airport to help the U.S. and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 on March 21. * 2012: Obama and Medvedev meet at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul to discuss the increase economic trade on March 26. * 2012: The U.S., Russia and NATO hold missile defense exercises in Germany, from March 26 to March 30. * 2012: American, Russian and NATO military forces agree to strengthen cooperation to counter piracy in the Horn of Africa on March 27. * 2012: Russian prime minister
Dmitry Medvedev Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev ( rus, links=no, Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев, p=ˈdmʲitrʲɪj ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mʲɪdˈvʲedʲɪf; born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician who has been serving as the dep ...
attends the 38th G8 summit in Maryland, from May 18 to May 19. * 2012: Russia joins the U.S. and NATO at the 2012 Chicago Summit, Chicago Summit on May 20. * 2012: Obama and Putin meet at the 2012 G-20 Los Cabos summit, 7th G-20 meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico, and call for an end to the Syrian civil war on June 18 to 19. * 2012: American and Russian navies participate in the Exercise RIMPAC, RIMPAC 2012 naval exercises from June 29 to August 3. * 2012: Russia joins the World Trade Organization, WTO and begins trade with the U.S. on August 22. * 2013: Russia supports the U.S. against North Korea for North Korea building up tensions in the Korean peninsula and for threatening the U.S. during the 2013 Korean crisis, crisis with North Korea on April 8. * 2013: The U.S. and Russia agree to intensify their cooperation in countering terrorism, including information exchange between intelligence organizations and conduct joint counter-terrorist operations as well as signing a cyber security pact to reduce the risk of conflict in cyberspace and signing the New Anti-Proliferation Deal in order to protect, control and account for nuclear materials on June 17 during the 39th G8 summit. * 2013 August 7. President Obama cancels an upcoming summit with Putin; journalists call it "a rare, deliberate snub that reflects the fresh damage done by the Edward Snowden case to an important relationship already in decline." * 2013: Obama and Putin make progress on the discussion of Syria at the end of the 2013 G-20 Saint Petersburg summit, 2013 G-20 summit in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on September 6. * 2013: U.S. secretary of state John Kerry and Russian foreign minister
Sergey Lavrov Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov (russian: Сергей Викторович Лавров, ; born 21 March 1950) is a Russian diplomat and politician who has served as the Foreign Minister of Russia since 2004. Lavrov served as the Permanent Represe ...
meet in Geneva, Switzerland, and agree to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons on September 14. * 2013: The U.S. and Russia along with the United Kingdom, France, China and Germany sign a deal with Iran about their nuclear program in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 27. * 2014: The Geneva II Conference on Syria, Geneva II Conference * 2014: The U.S. Olympics team arrives in Sochi, Russia, to participate in the 2014 Winter Olympics on January 30. * 2014 - Continuing. see Russian military intervention in Ukraine (2014–present) * 2014: The U.S. and Russia along with the European Union and Ukraine talk in Geneva about the crisis in Ukraine and reach an agreement to end the crisis on April 17. * 2014: The U.S. and Russia start sending aid to Iraq to help fight Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIS on June 5. * 2015: The U.S. and Russia along with members of the European Union and Ukraine welcome Minsk agreements#Minsk II, February 2015, the new Minsk agreement to stop the War in Donbas (2014–2022), war in Donbas in Donbas on February 12. * 2015: The U.S. and Russia agree to build a new space station to replace the International Space Station and to make a joint project to travel to Mars on March 28. * 2015: The U.S. and Russia along with the United Kingdom, France, China, Germany, the European Union and Iran sign the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to regulate Iran's nuclear program in Vienna, Austria on July 14. * 2015: The U.S. and Russia reach an agreement on a UN resolution that would designate accountability for use of chemical weapons in Syria on August 6. * 2015: The U.S. and Russia resume military relations to increase fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Islamic State on September 18. * 2015: Obama and Putin meet in New York to discuss ways to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Islamic State on September 28–29. * 2015: The U.S. and Russia sign a deal to avoid air incidents over Syria on October 20. * 2015: Obama and Putin have an informal bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the
G-20 Summit The following list of G20 summits summarizes all G20 conferences held at various different levels: summits of heads of state or heads of government, ministerial-level meetings, Engagement Group meetings and others. Summits of state leaders ...
in Turkey to discuss the situation in Syria and the ramifications of the November 2015 Paris attacks, Paris attacks on November 15. * 2015: The U.S., Russia and the United Nations hold three way talks on Syria in Geneva, Switzerland on December 11. * 2015: The U.S. and Russia, along with the United Nations approve a resolution that supports international efforts to seek a solution to end the Syrian Civil War and provide a new government in Syria in Vienna, Austria on December 18. * 2016 June: A debate opens inside the Republican Party on future American policy toward Russia. The presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump has suggested that US and Russia might work together in areas such as Syria. Meanwhile, on June 9, Republican leaders in Congress urged confronting Putin, alleging that he is exhibiting "burgeoning militarism" and calling for "standing up to Russian aggression and bolstering countries such as Ukraine." * 2016 November: Donald Trump wins the US presidential election. * 2017 April: According to Trump, US ties with Russia may be at all-time low following US missile strike on Syria. * 2017 July: During a speech in
Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...
,
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
, Trump warned Russia to stop its "destabilizing" actions in Ukraine and elsewhere, and its support for "hostile regimes" such as those in
Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
and
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. He also urged Russia to "join the community of responsible nations". * 2017 July: Trump and Putin held a meeting for more than a two-hour period at the 2017 G20 Hamburg summit, G20 Summit in Hamburg. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Trump brought up discussion about Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election. * 2018 July 16, 2018 Russia–United States summit, Russia–United States summit between Trump and Putin took place in Helsinki, Finland. Topics of discussion included the situation in Syria, the Ukrainian crisis and nuclear arms control. * 2021 June 16, 2021 Russia–United States summit, Russia–United States summit between Biden and Putin took place in Geneva, Switzerland. *2021 Nov 19, the congressmen calling on the U.S. not to recognize Vladimir Putin as president of Russia beyond 2024. Kremlin denounced it as an attempt to meddle in its domestic policy, domestic affairs. *2022 January, the U.S. sent 5000-8500 troops to Eastern Europe, to assist Ukraine against a potential renewed invasion by Russia. *2022 Feb 24, 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia invades Ukraine. The Planetary Society is known to have collaborated with Russia, especially Cosmos 1 and LIFE. In 2014, NASA renewed a contract to ferry U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station on Soyuz (rocket family), Soyuz rockets and Soyuz (spacecraft), spacecraft. Including additional support at the Russian launch site, this contract is costing the United States $457.9 million. Along with the renewal, NASA also announced that they would be cutting some contacts with Russia after the annexation of Crimea. In June 2021, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told CNN Business' Rachel Crane about the future of U.S.-Russian cooperation in the International Space Station (ISS): "For decades, upwards now of 45 plus years [we've cooperated with] Russians in space, and I want that cooperation to continue. Your politics can be hitting heads on Earth, while you are cooperating" in space. In December 2022, Russia and America agreed to do a prisoner exchange. Dr Viktor and Brittney Griner were swapped.


Nuclear arms race

In 1995, a Black Brant (rocket), Black Brant sounding rocket launched from the Andøya Space Center caused a high alert in Russia, known as the Norwegian rocket incident. The Russians thought it might be a Trident (missile), nuclear missile launched from an American submarine. The incident occurred in the post-Cold War era, where many Russians were still very suspicious of the United States and
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...
. The Norwegian rocket incident was the first and thus far only known incident where any nuclear-weapons state had its nuclear briefcase activated and prepared for launching an attack. President Donald Trump announced on October 20, 2018 that the U.S. would no longer consider itself bound by the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, INF Treaty’s provisions, raising nuclear tensions between the two powers. Two days later, Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer told Deutsche Welle that the Second Cold War, new Cold War would make this treaty and other Cold War-era treaties "irrelevant because they correspond to a totally different world situation." In early 2019, more than 90% of world's 13,865 nuclear weapons were owned by Russia and the United States. President Putin oversaw Russia's large-scale nuclear war exercises on October 17, 2019, where the Russian army integrated land, sea and air components of the nation's nuclear triad, nearly one year after Trump announced that the US was pulling-out of the nuclear treaty it had signed with Russia. According to a peer-reviewed study published in the journal ''Nature Food'' in August 2022, a full-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, which together hold more than 90% of the world's
nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
s, would kill 360 million people directly and more than 5 billion indirectly from starvation during a nuclear winter.


Economic ties

The U.S. Congress repealed the Jackson–Vanik amendment on November 16, 2012. "Last year [2015] was not particularly favorable for trade between Russia and the U.S. Our overall 2015 turnover was $21 billion, a decline of 27.9 percent," said a senior Russian official in April 2016. Reuters reported that List of companies of the United States by state, U.S. companies "generated more than $90 billion in revenue from Russia in 2017." According to the AALEP, "there are almost 3,000 American companies in Russia, and the U.S. is also the leader in terms of foreign companies in Special Economic Zones in Russia, Special Economic Zones, with 11 projects."


Military ties

Following the demise of the Soviet Union, the United States and Russia signed a bilateral treaty called the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (
START II START II (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and Russia on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. It was signed by US President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Ye ...
), signed by George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin. The United States and Russia have conducted joint military maneuvers, training and counter-terrorism, counter-terrorist exercises in Germany. This was done in hopes to strengthen relations with the United States and Russia. The Russian president has also proposed that the United States and Russia put a joint missile defense, missile defense system in Azerbaijan, a proposal being considered by the United States. In 2008, in response to tensions over
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...
, the United States had cancelled its most recent joint
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...
-Russia military exercises. As of August 2012, the U.S. and Russia continue to hold joint military exercises like Northern Eagle (held since 2004, together with Norway) and Vigilant/Watchful Eagle (with Canada) among others, with the aim of improving joint cooperation against terrorism and Piracy in Somalia, piracy.


NATO–Russia relations

Russia-U.S. relations are significantly influenced by the United States' leading role in
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...
and policies thereof. NATO and Russia agreed to cooperate on security issues at the 2002 Rome summit and had been gradually improving relations. However, due to the Enlargement of NATO, expansion of the alliance, the 2008 South Ossetia war, Russian intervention in Georgia, Russian military intervention in Ukraine, Russia's war campaign against Ukraine and other controversies, relations have since deteriorated significantly. In May 2015, following increased tensions with NATO, Russia closed a key NATO logistics in the Afghan War, military transport corridor (the Northern Distribution Network), which had allowed NATO to deliver military supplies to Afghanistan through the Russian territory.Russia closes NATO supply corridor to Afghanistan
. ''The Washington Times.'' May 19, 2015.
The Northern Distribution Network was established in 2009 in response to the increased risk of sending supplies through Pakistan. A June 2016 Levada Center, Levada poll found that 68% of Russians think that deploying NATO troops in the
Baltic states The Baltic states, et, Balti riigid or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term, which currently is used to group three countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone ...
and
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
– former Eastern bloc countries bordering Russia – is a threat to Russia.


Joint operations and mutual support

Russia has expressed support for the United States' War on Terror. Russia has also agreed to provide logistic support for the United States forces in Afghanistan to aid in anti-terrorist operations. Russia has allowed U.S. and NATO forces to pass through its territory to go to Afghanistan. In 2017, the former Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: "We cooperated with regard to Afghanistan, where Russia played a positive role, particularly in letting our forces and our equipment transit into and out of Afghanistan."


See also

* Foreign relations of Russia * Foreign relations of the United States * Embassy of Russia, Washington, D.C. * Embassy of the United States, Moscow * List of ambassadors of Russia to the United States, Ambassadors of Russia to the United States * List of ambassadors of the United States to Russia, Ambassadors of the United States to Russia * Russian Empire–United States relations * Soviet Union–United States relations * Russia–NATO relations


Notes


References


Further reading

* Gaddis, John Lewis, ed. ''Russia, Soviet Union & the United States: an Interpretive History'' (1978) * Weiner, Tim. ''The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare 1945–2020'' (2020); Pulitzer Priz
excerpt
* Ziegler, Charles E. "Russian–American relations: From Tsarism to Putin." ''International Politics'' (2014) 51#6 pp: 671–692
online


To 1945

* Bailey, Thomas A. ''America Faces Russia: Russian-American Relations from Early Times to Our Day'' (1950). * Bailey, Thomas A. ''A Diplomatic History of the American People'' (10th edition 1980
online free to borrow
* Bolkhovitinov, Nikolai N. ''The Beginnings of Russian-American Relations, 1775–1815'' (Harvard University Press, 1975) https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674733305 * Feis, Herbert. ''Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin: the war they waged and the peace they sought'' (Princeton University Press, 1957), World War II
online free to borrow
* Kennan, George F. ''Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920: Volume I, Russia Leaves the War'' (Princeton University Press, 1956) * Kennan, George Frost. ''Soviet foreign policy, 1917–1941'' (Van Nostrand, 1960), Brief summary with documents * Kinsella, William E. "Relations with the Soviet Union" in William D. Pederson, ed. ''A Companion to Franklin D. Roosevelt'' (2011) pp 564–589 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444395181.ch29 * Laserson, Max M. ''The American Impact on Russia: Diplomatic and Ideological, 1784–1917'' (1950) * McNeill, William Hardy. ''America, Britain, & Russia: their co-operation and conflit, 1941–1946'' (1953) * Sainsbury, Keith. ''The Turning Point: Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill, and Chiang-Kai-Shek, 1943: the Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran Conferences'' (Oxford UP, 1986
online
* Sogrin, Vladimir V. "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the USSR, 1933–1945: An Interpretation." in ''New Perspectives on Russian-American Relations'' (Routledge, 2015) pp. 212–228. * Stalin, Joseph. ''Correspondence Between the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Presidents of the USA and the Prime Ministers of Great Britain During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945: Correspondence with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman (August 1941-December 1945)'' (Documentary Publications, 1978
online
* Zabriskie, Edward H. ''American-Russian rivalry in the Far East. A study in diplomacy and power politics, 1895–1914'' (1946
online


Cold War

* English, Robert D.
Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War
' (Columbia University Press, 2000) * Fenby, Jonathan. ''Alliance: the inside story of how Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill won one war and began another'' (2015
online
* Gaddis, John Lewis.
The Cold War: a new history
' (Penguin, 2006) * Gleason, Abbott. ''Totalitarianism: The inner history of the Cold War'' (Oxford University Press, 1995) * Graebner, Norman A., Richard Dean Burns, and Joseph M. Siracusa.
Reagan, Bush, Gorbachev: Revisiting the end of the cold war
' (Greenwood, 2008) * Levering, Ralph B. et al. eds. ''Debating the Origins of the Cold War: American and Russian Perspectives'' (2013
online
* Mann, Jim.
The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War
' (Penguin, 2009) * Matlock Jr, Jack F.
Reagan and Gorbachev: How the cold war ended
' (2005), Analysis by the American ambassador to Moscow * Service, Robert. ''The End of the Cold War: 1985–1991'' (2015
excerpt
a standard scholarly history * Zubok, Vladislav. ''Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: from Stalin to Krushchev'' (Harvard University Press, 1997
online


Since 1991

* Aggarwal, Vinod K., and Kristi Govella, eds. ''Responding to a Resurgent Russia: Russian Policy and Responses from the European Union and the United States'' (Springer Science & Business Media, 2011). * Ambrosio, Thomas, and Geoffrey Vandrovec. "Mapping the Geopolitics of the Russian Federation: The Federal Assembly Addresses of Putin and Medvedev." ''Geopolitics'' (2013) 18#2 pp 435–466. * Goldgeier, James, and Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson. "Evaluating NATO enlargement: scholarly debates, policy implications, and roads not taken." ''International Politics'' 57 (2020): 291-321. * Gvosdev, Nikolas K., and Christopher Marsh. ''Russian Foreign Policy: Interests, Vectors, and Sectors'' (Washington: CQ Press, 2013
excerpt and text search
* Hopf, Ted, ed. ''Understandings of Russian Foreign Policy'' (1999) * Kanet, Roger E. ''Russian foreign policy in the 21st century'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) * Larson, Deborah Welch, and Alexei Shevchenko. "Status seekers: Chinese and Russian responses to US primacy." ''International Security'' (2010) 34#4 pp 63–95. * Legvold, Robert, ed. ''Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century and the Shadow of the Past'' (2007). * Mankoff, Jeffrey. ''Russian Foreign Policy: The Return of Great Power Politics'' (2nd ed. 2011). * * Ernest J. Moniz, Moniz, Ernest J., and Sam Nunn, "The Return of Doomsday: The New Nuclear Arms Race – and How Washington and Moscow Can Stop It", ''Foreign Affairs'', 98#5 (September / October 2019), pp. 150–61. Argues "the old [strategic] equilibrium" has been "destabilized" by "clashing national interests, insufficient dialogue, eroding arms control structures, advanced missile systems, and new cyberweapons. (p. 161.) * Oberdorfer, Don. ''The Turn: From the Cold War to a New Era: the United States and the Soviet Union, 1983–1990'' (1991). * Orlova, Victoria V. "US–Russia Relations in the Last 30 Years: From a Rapprochement to a Meltdown." in ''30 Years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall'' (Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore, 2020) pp. 117–138. * Parker, David. ''US Foreign Policy Towards Russia in the Post-Cold War Era: Ideational Legacies and Institutionalised Conflict and Co-operation'' (Routledge, 2019). * Reif, Kingston, and Shannon Bugos. "Putin invites US to extend New START." ''Arms Control Today'' 50.1 (2020): 25-27
online
* Peterson, James W. ''Russian-American relations in the post-Cold War world'' (Oxford UP, 2017). * Sakwa, Richard. ''The Putin Paradox'' (I. B. Tauris Bloomsbury, 2020
online
* Sakwa, Richard. ''Russia against the Rest: The Post-Cold War Crisis of World Order'' (Cambridge UP, 2017) 362p
online review
* Sakwa, Richard. ''Putin: Russia's Choice'' (2nd ed. 2008
excerpt
* * Schoen, Douglas E. and Melik Kaylan. ''Return to Winter: Russia, China, and the New Cold War Against America'' (2015) * Stent, Angela E. ''The Limits of Partnership: U.S. Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century'' (Princeton UP, 2014) 355 pages
excerpt and text search
* Strobe Talbott, Talbott, Strobe. ''The Russia hand: A memoir of presidential diplomacy'' (2007); memoir by key U.S. diplomat; a primary source * Tsygankov, Andrei P. "The Russia-NATO mistrust: Ethnophobia and the double expansion to contain "the Russian Bear"." ''Communist and Post-Communist Studies'' (2013).


External links


A Guide to the United States' History of Recognition, Diplomatic, and Consular Relations, by Country, since 1776: Russia

Report from the Commission on U.S. Policy Toward Russia
Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center

, ACDIS ''Swords and Ploughshares'', ed. by Matthew A. Rosenstein, published by the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS), University of Illinois (winter 2008–9)

, ACDIS Occasional Paper, by Roger E. Kanet, published by the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS), University of Illinois (May 2009).
Back to the Future? US-Russia Relations after Georgia
by Marcin Zaborowski, European Union Institute for Security Studies, Analysis, September 2008.
translations of foreign newspaper articles about Russian-American relations from nonprofit WorldMeets.USlink to PDF slideshow, 'The "Reset": Theory, Results, Future' released by Michael McFaul U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation during the Twitter War of May 28, 2012
*[https://lepetitjournal.com/new-york/joe-biden-elu-quid-des-relations-russo-americaines-291978 Russian-American relations under the Democrats] (Interview in French by Houda Belabd for Lepetitjournal.com) {{DEFAULTSORT:Russia-United States Relations Russia–United States relations, Bilateral relations of Russia, United States Bilateral relations of the United States