Diplomatic Relations with Russia: Overview

Introduction

The relationship between the United States and Russia has long been marked by significant conflict. After World War II, the two nations (with Russia as the main force in the Soviet Union) emerged as the world's superpowers, each possessing nuclear weapons and wielding massive socioeconomic influence. The ensuing Cold War between them dominated geopolitics through the late twentieth century, with each side accusing the other of aggression. While relations initially improved following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, various obstacles remained, and tensions flared sharply again in the early twenty-first century.

From the American perspective, many observers attributed escalating hostilities primarily to Vladimir Putin, who steadily consolidated power in Russia after first becoming president in 2000. Putin's message of resurgent Russian strength and his willingness to openly challenge the United States galvanized support for his regime, which also grew more authoritarian over the years. By the late 2000s Russia was increasingly at odds with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a Western multinational mutual defense organization, and critical of what it characterized as US interference in other former Soviet states. Through the 2010s, Putin’s government took an unapologetically aggressive posture in international relations, including annexing the Crimean peninsula (part of Ukraine), openly testing weapons in violation of treaties, bombing US allies in Syria, and authorizing the assassination of opposition leaders and journalists. Tensions ratcheted up even higher after US authorities announced that Russia had interfered in the 2016 US presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, the eventual winner. While President Trump himself often spoke favorably of Putin, US-Russian relations continued to deteriorate, especially after Trump lost the 2020 election and Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The question of how to respond to an aggressive stance from Russia has raised much public debate in the US. Some politicians and other observers dismiss Russian aggression as bravado and political posturing, arguing that sanctions or threats will only escalate the situation and therefore the only workable solution is continuing diplomacy. Others see a dangerous nuclear state actively working against the interests of the United States and the European Union (EU), and argue that Russia must be shown that hostility will be met with stiff resistance. The issue continues to reflect the status of the United States and Russia as major world powers with longstanding political differences.

Understanding the Discussion

Crimea: A peninsula comprising approximately 10,400 square miles of land in Eastern Europe. Part of Ukraine from 1954, it was annexed by Russia in 2014.

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty: A nuclear weapon control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union, signed by US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987.

Mueller Report: An official report into Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election, from a US Department of Justice investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): A military alliance of North American and European countries, founded in 1949 largely in response to the perceived threat of the Soviet Union. NATO has often been viewed as an antagonist by Russia, especially as the organization's membership has expanded over the decades.

Ukraine: A country in eastern Europe that borders a number of other nations, including Russia. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union and became independent in 1991 during the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2014, after a protest movement known as Euromaidan overthrew Ukraine's pro-Russian government, Russia illegally annexed Crimea and other areas in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region. In 2022 Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, triggering Europe's deadliest war in decades. By that time Ukraine had become a close ally of the United States and other NATO countries.

Vladimir Putin: A Russian politician and former KGB officer who became the preeminent leader of Russia in 2000, serving two terms as president from 2000 to 2008 and then returning to the position in 2012. Between 2008 and 2012, he held the position of prime minister of Russia. He was reelected to the presidency of Russia multiple times, including in 2024.

History

The adversarial relationship between Russia and the United States is deeply rooted in the long and complex history of the Cold War period. The Soviet Union, a Communist country formed in 1922 with Russia as its dominant member, was a vital ally of the United States during World War II, despite conflicting ideologies and simmering tensions. After the war, however, the Soviet Union consolidated its control over Eastern Europe and parts of Germany, and the United States and its allies responded by blocking Soviet expansion and forming the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. The Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb that same year, emphasizing the mounting arms race between the world's two superpowers.

The Korean War (1950–53) was the first of many international armed conflicts that served as proxy wars between the United States and the Soviet Union, with each side determined to halt the spread of the ideology of their other. The Vietnam War (1955–75) would prove especially impactful on American society. There was never direct military engagement between the US and the Soviet Union, but in the early 1960s, with the building of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the two nuclear superpowers came so close to open conflict that in 1963, the two countries agreed to establish direct lines of communication between the two governments that could be used in a crisis.

Despite continuing hostilities, including the ongoing conflict in Vietnam, the next two decades were marked by continuous negotiations, treaties, and diplomatic maneuvering. Notable diplomatic achievements included the July 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, an agreement to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons signed by the United States, the Soviet Union, and sixty other nations; the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty; and the 1972 and 1979 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I and II). The election of Mikhail Gorbachev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985 marked a period of reform in Russia, marked by Gorbachev’s principles of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). Gorbachev and US president Ronald Reagan sent televised holiday greetings to each other, removed some restrictions on travel and trade, and signed the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

Beginning in 1989, communist governments across Eastern Europe began to fall. Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union would not interfere with the internal affairs of those countries that were ousting their communist governments. The Berlin Wall, which separated communist East Berlin from West Berlin and symbolized the Cold War division of Germany, came down in November of that year. It was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. By December 25, 1991, all but one of the Soviet republics had left the union and announced that they would establish the Commonwealth of Independent States; the breakaway province of Chechnya unilaterally declared independence; and Gorbachev resigned.

Boris Yeltsin, president of Russia beginning in June 1991, led Russia though the chaotic period that followed the dismantling of the Soviet Union. Though the world celebrated the end of the Cold War and its nuclear threats, and Russia embraced many democratic and free-market reforms, the change was messy, painful, and complicated. Unleashed from the repressive regimes of the past, autocrats, corruption, and criminality flourished. Russia's economy foundered as businesses privatized and created wealthy oligarchs at the expense of the people. Political unrest, crime, corruption, and poverty sparked resentment of what was seen as interference by the United States and other Western powers and the vastly diminished role of Russia on the world stage, and a degree of nostalgia for the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the US experienced an economic boom through much of the 1990s, but also increasing political polarization.

In 1999, Boris Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned, naming Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a former KGB official, as the interim president. Putin went on to win the March 2000 election. From the beginning of his presidency, it was clear that Putin was deeply invested in returning Russia to its place as a major international power, and would use nostalgia for the power of the Soviet era to build support. In 2000, he reinstated the Soviet national anthem, with new words, and took a hard line with US president Bill Clinton at a summit in Moscow, refusing to come to an agreement on a national missile defense system. In 2001, in an ongoing feud with new US president George W. Bush, Putin and the White House expelled members of each other’s diplomatic corps, a power play used frequently by Putin thereafter.

Putin began consolidating power at home, reining in the Russian media, and closing the last independent Russian television station in 2003. New laws forbade the media to comment on elections, prompting protests nationwide. After winning decisive reelection in 2004, Putin abolished the election of regional governors in favor of political appointments, and openly mourned the loss of the Soviet Union as a “major geopolitical disaster” in a 2005 state of the nation address. In 2006, Putin boasted that Russia’s missiles could penetrate any defense system in the world.

In 2008, Putin, who was no longer eligible to run for president because of term limits in Russia, was appointed prime minister and continued to be the de facto Russian leader. That same year, President Bush promised Ukraine and Georgia that they would one day join NATO, a major point of contention with Russia. This contributed to an often antagonistic relationship between Putin and subsequent US president Barack Obama. One of the few successful negotiations during this period was the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) signed in 2010, which reduced both nations' stockpiles of launch platforms for nuclear missiles. In 2011, Putin accused the United States of interfering in parliamentary elections and encouraging antigovernment protests. Putin won a third presidential term in 2012, amid widespread complaints of election fraud. In response to US sanctions prompted by allegations of human rights violations, Putin ended the widespread adoption of Russian children by Americans. In 2013 Russia also granted political asylum to former US government contractor Edward Snowden, who had leaked classified documents and was wanted by US authorities.

In 2014, Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, incurring condemnation and sanctions from Western nations, including the United States. In 2015, the civil war in Syria emerged as another point of sharp conflict, with Russia supplying Syrian government forces with aid and bombing antigovernment forces supported by the United States, while claiming to target ISIS terrorist groups. The United States and the European Union (EU) extended sanctions that had begun as a result of the invasion of Crimea in 2014, and added more Russian corporations and banks to the list, further antagonizing Putin and the Russian oligarchs.

In 2016, hints began to emerge in the US press that Putin was working covertly to help elect Republican candidate Donald Trump in the US presidential election. Though he staunchly denied these allegations, Putin did publicly praise Trump. For his part, Trump spoke more favorably of Putin than most other US government figures. In September 2016, Russia’s covert activities to disrupt the election—including both by supporting Trump and by damaging Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and Democratic political groups—were revealed to Congress, leading to the expulsion of thirty-five Russian diplomats from the US and further expansion of sanctions against Russia.

After Trump won the presidency, further details of Russian interference in the 2016 election were revealed with the publication of the Mueller Report in 2019. It found that a foreign government with a history of adversarial relations with the United States had hacked into e-mail servers, released waves of negative messaging on social media, made repeated contacts with business leaders that controlled election finances, and could have made a difference in the ultimate outcome of the election. However, it did not find evidence of direct collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, as some observers had speculated. Although the US intelligence community resoundingly agreed that Russia had substantially interfered in US politics, Trump and his allies largely dismissed this assessment as a hoax meant to undermine his presidency.

Despite what often seemed to be a cordial relationship with President Trump, Putin’s aggressive posturing continued in the years following Trump’s election. In 2017, Putin announced that he would expel 755 members of the US diplomatic service in Russia because of new and renewed Western sanctions. In 2018, the US and many other Western powers imposed additional sanctions after the Russian government was implicated in the attempted murder of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in England. That same year, the US announced that it would withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. NATO reported that a new Russian missile system was in violation of that treaty and represented a considerable threat to international security.

In May 2019, the United States also accused Russia of interfering in the political crisis in Venezuela after Russian military personnel arrived in support of embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. The United States offered support to Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó after a contested election. In 2020, the Trump administration continued its turn away from negotiations by leaving the Treaty on Open Skies—a pact allowing surveillance flights with the intent of avoiding intelligence misunderstandings—after suggesting Russia had violated the agreement. Russia soon announced it would consider withdrawing from the treaty as well.

Diplomatic Relations with Russia Today

The relationship between the United States and Russia remained tense around the 2020 US presidential election, as many security experts warned of the risk of interference similar to that during the 2016 election. Social media campaigns widely believed to originate in Russia continued to stir social and political unrest in the United States. Meanwhile, US officials were highly critical of Putin's administration after Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned in August 2020, an attack linked to Russian government agents. Fresh sanctions were imposed on various Russian officials following the poisoning; Navalny survived but was imprisoned in Russia in early 2021, leading to protests from human rights groups. Additionally, the US-Russian relationship faced challenges related to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and its severe economic impact, which exacerbated already volatile economic conditions in Russia in particular.

Despite apparent Russian attempts to influence the 2020 US presidential election, Trump lost his reelection bid to Democratic challenger Joe Biden, which was seen as a blow to Putin's agenda. The Biden administration notably took a more open diplomatic approach to nuclear treaty talks, and in February 2021 the New START agreement was extended for five years. Yet Biden took a firm stance against perceived Russian aggression in other ways, for example by adding new sanctions in response to a series of major cyberattacks in 2020 (often called the SolarWinds hack, after one of the targeted companies) that were widely blamed on Russia. Along with cybersecurity, issues such as a Russian gas pipeline project and Russian military buildup on the Ukraine border kept tensions high. Amid reports that US-Russian relations were at a low point unseen since the Cold War, Biden and Putin planned a summit in June 2021. The meeting resulted in a great deal of media coverage but few changes in diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Tensions with Russia surged in early 2022, as Putin again amassed troops at the Russia-Ukraine border, seemingly intent on overthrowing Ukraine's government. On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full invasion of Ukraine, including a bombing campaign that hit civilian as well as military targets, to widespread international outrage. The US sent weapons and other military aid to Ukraine and increased troops in NATO countries bordering Russia. The Biden administration also imposed fresh sanctions on Russia, including measures that restricted Russian banks' ability to take part in the global financial system, and froze Russian assets totaling trillions of dollars. Russia decried such actions, at times accusing the US of direct involvement in the war, and took retaliatory measures such as refusing to resume mutual inspections under the New START treaty.

The Russia-Ukraine war remained a focal point of geopolitical tensions through 2023, with complex impact. For example, the invasion was directly credited with driving both Finland and Sweden to apply for NATO membership, which in turn further inflamed Russia's accusations of US-led Western antagonism. The war also shifted the political situation in some other countries that, like Ukraine, had long balanced between Russian and Western influence. Notably, Kazakhstan—a key economic ally of Russia—criticized the conflict and showed some signs of tilting toward the West, prompting efforts by Putin to bolster ties between the two countries and accuse the US of political meddling. Meanwhile, the fraught US-Russian relationship only complicated many areas of ongoing international negotiation. For instance, proposals for environmental conservation areas in Antarctica were consistently blocked by Russia, a move that many observers suggested could be motivated by Russia's interest in the economic value of fisheries and other resources in the region.

During this time, increased tensions between the US and Russia also threatened nuclear agreements between the two nations and, some observers warned, heightened the possibility of nuclear proliferation. According to a 2023 estimate by the Federation of American Scientists, Russia's nuclear arsenal contained 5,889 nuclear warheads, making it the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. The US had the world's second-largest nuclear arsenal, with 5,244 strategic and retired (but intact) nuclear warheads. In November 2023 Russia formally rescinded its ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which the US had signed in 1996 but never formally ratified. This treaty had banned all nuclear explosions, whether for military or peaceful purposes. In April 2024 Russia also vetoed a UN resolution which would have banned nuclear weapons in space; in the aftermath of that decision, some US intelligence officials warned that Russia was developing a nuclear weapon which could be used in space to disable satellites. While at that time Russia had not conducted a nuclear test since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Putin cautioned that Russia would resume nuclear testing if the US did so.

American political attitudes toward Russia shifted as the Russia-Ukraine war and its global economic impact dragged on well into 2024. While the Biden administration maintained strong support for Ukraine and a strict stance on Russia in general, a significant faction of the Republican opposition increasingly turned against military aid to Ukraine. Trump's status as the Republican front-runner for the 2024 US presidential election also brought fresh attention to the ongoing threat of Russian election interference and partisan debate over US foreign policy. In April 2024, after a lengthy delay and signficant political infighting, Congress passed bipartisan legislation that included $61 billion in military aid for Ukraine.

These essays and any opinions, information, or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

Bibliography

Bilefsky, Dan, et al. "The Roots of the Ukraine War: How the Crisis Developed." The New York Times, 28 Feb. 2022, www.nytimes.com/article/russia-ukraine-nato-europe.html. Accessed 1 Mar. 2022.

Burns, William J. “How the US-Russian Relationship Went Bad.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, carnegieendowment.org/2019/03/08/how-u.s.-russian-relationship-went-bad-pub-78543. Accessed 21 May 2019.

Ioffe, Julia. “What Putin Really Wants.” The Atlantic, 11 Dec. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/putins-game/546548/. Accessed 21 May 2019.

Isachenkov, Vladimir. "Russian Diplomat Says US-Russia Relations Are In An 'Unprecedented Crisis.'" PBS NewsHour, www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/russian-diplomat-says-u-s-russia-relations-are-in-an-unprecedented-crisis. Accessed 20 Dec. 2023.

Kulakevich, Tatsiana. "Senate Approves Nearly $61B of Ukraine Foreign Aid − Here’s Why it Helps the US to Keep Funding Ukraine." The Conversation, 24 Apr. 2024, theconversation.com/senate-approves-nearly-61b-of-ukraine-foreign-aid-heres-why-it-helps-the-us-to-keep-funding-ukraine-228344. Accessed 26 Apr. 2024.

MacFarquhar, Neil. "Russia Pulled Out of a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Here’s What That Means.." The New York Times, 2 Nov. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/11/02/world/europe/russia-nuclear-test-ban-treaty.html. Accessed 26 Apr. 2024.

Madhani, Aamer, et al. "Face to Face: June Summit for Biden, Putin, as Tensions Rise." AP, 25 May 2021, apnews.com/article/biden-putin-geneva-summit-c9b0543248313447b0eac28da50c6188. Accessed 1 June 2021.

"Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What at a Glance." Arms Control Association, 2023, www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat. Accessed 26 Apr. 2024.

Pifer, Steven. "US-Russia Relations, One Year After Geneva." Brookings, 16 June 2022, www.brookings.edu/articles/u-s-russia-relations-one-year-after-geneva/. Accessed 20 Dec. 2023.

“Relations with Russia.” NATO, 3 Aug. 2023, www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics‗50090.htm. Accessed 20 Dec. 2023.

Rumer, Eugene, and Richard Sokolsky. "Thirty Years of US Policy Toward Russia: Can the Vicious Circle Be Broken?" Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 20 June 2019, carnegieendowment.org/2019/06/20/thirty-years-of-u.s.-policy-toward-russia-can-vicious-circle-be-broken-pub-79323. Accessed 20 Dec. 2023.

"Russia Says West Is Trying to Drive a Wedge Between It and Kazakhstan, TASS Reports." Reuters, 23 June 2023, www.reuters.com/world/russia-says-west-is-trying-drive-wedge-between-it-kazakhstan-tass-2023-06-23/. Accessed 20 Dec. 2023.

Shane, Scott, and Mark Mazzetti. “The Plot to Subvert an Election: Unraveling the Russia Story So Far.” The New York Times, 20 Sept. 2018, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/20/us/politics/russia-interference-election-trump-clinton.html. Accessed 21 May 2019.

Stent, Angela. "Why Are US-Russia Relations So Challenging?" Brookings, 27 Apr. 2020, www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/why-are-us-russia-relations-so-challenging/. Accessed 1 June 2021.

Tamkin, Emily. “Why Is Russia Clashing with the United States over Venezuela?” The Washington Post, 1 May 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/05/01/why-is-russia-clashing-with-united-states-over-venezuela/. Accessed 21 May 2019.

"US Relations with Russia." US Department of State, 3 Sept. 2021, www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-russia/. Accessed 20 Dec. 2023.

Weir, Fred. "Worse Than the Cold War? US-Russia Relations Hit New Low." The Christian Science Monitor, 20 Apr. 2021, www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2021/0420/Worse-than-the-Cold-War-US-Russia-relations-hit-new-low. Accessed 1 June 2021.