RUSSIA-US RELATIONS

In recent years, Russian-American relations, which are a critical pillar of global security and stability, have dramatically declined due to differences in the countries’ approaches to resolving a number of international problems and Washington’s deliberate actions undermining the foundations of cooperation.

In March 2014, the US used the internal Ukrainian crisis, which the Obama Administration essentially provoked, as a pretext to limit the bilateral dialogue and declared a policy of systematically containing Russia. Republican candidate Donald Trump, who won the presidential election on November 8, 2016, announced that he would attempt to restore normalcy and stability to Russian-American ties.

On November 9, 2016, Vladimir Putin sent a congratulatory message to Donald Trump following his victory in the US presidential election and spoke with him by phone on November 14. The leaders held their first official telephone conversation after Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 28, 2017. On the night of April 4, Donald Trump called Vladimir Putin to express his condolences on the terrorist attack in St Petersburg. The presidents also spoke by phone on May 2 to discuss current international issues.

On July 7, 2017, the presidents met in person for the first time in Hamburg, on the sidelines of the G20 summit. For over two hours the heads of state discussed a wide range of issues, including the general state of Russian-American relations and current international issues.

Contacts between foreign ministers include the first meeting between Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, which took place on February 16, 2017, on the sidelines of the G20 ministerial meeting in Bonn. The talks continued on April 12 in Moscow, where the Secretary of State was also received by Vladimir Putin. On May 10, Sergey Lavrov paid a working visit to Washington, which included a meeting with the US President. The next contacts between the ministers took place in September on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The political dialogue with the previous Democratic Administration in 2016 included six telephone conversations between Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama, as well as the September 5 meeting on the sidelines of the G20 ministerial meeting in Hangzhou. The leaders also had a brief conversation during the APEC summit in Lima on November 20. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry also maintained intensive contacts: in 2015–2016 they held over 30 meetings and 130 telephone conversations. After his visit to Sochi on May 12, 2015, John Kerry paid three working visits to Moscow in 14 months (December 15, 2015, March 23-24, 2016, and July 14-15, 2016).

Dialogue is still impeded by the anti-Russian sentiment that continues to run high in Washington. The US Congress and media still repeat allegations of Russian cyberattacks aimed at interfering in the presidential election and collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump presidential campaign.

On July 27, 2017, the US Congress adopted the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act by an overwhelming majority. The law was signed by Donald Trump on August 2 and provides for further pressure on our country. Since December 2012, when the US adopted the Magnitsky Act, Washington has introduced unilateral restrictions against Russia 45 times, mostly under the pretext of the events in Crimea and Ukraine. The Trump Administration has continued its predecessors’ policy of extending anti-Russian restrictions. Currently, 190 Russian citizens and 395 Russian legal entities, as well as two ships and one oil and gas field are subject to US sanctions. Those actions forced Russia to respond, both in symmetrical and asymmetrical ways.

The new US law codifies the existing restrictions and also introduces a range of additional anti-Russian measures, such as decreasing the crediting period for banks and energy companies under restrictions and extending “sectoral” restrictions, as well as their extraterritorial application.

In the face of continued hostility from Washington, on July 28, 2017, Russia decided to suspend the US Embassy’s use of a country house in Serebryany Bor and a warehouse on Dorozhnaya Street in Moscow as of August 1. We also demanded that the US Embassy reduce its staff by September 1, including locally employed staff, to the level of Russian diplomatic and technical staff in the United States. Initially we proposed reducing the staff to 455, which includes the staff of our Permanent Mission to the UN, affording the Americans significantly more leeway.  

Instead of desisting and resuming normal cooperation, on the evening of August 31 the US announced new unprecedented measures to limit the activities of Russia’s diplomatic and consular missions in the US. We were ordered to close the San Francisco Consulate General, as well as the Russian Trade Representation’s office in Washington and its New York branch in two days. The US revoked their diplomatic immunity, searched them and blocked access to office premises completely. On October 2, US officials seized the residential areas of the Consulate General and the Consul General’s separate residence in San Francisco. Requirements for the travel of Russian diplomats and members of official delegations around the US were substantially tightened.

The President of Russia ordered that the actions of the US – which not only violated the principles of the Vienna conventions, but in fact were an attempt to raid real estate – be appealed in US courts. Possible reciprocal measures are being considered, in particular, the potential reduction of the staff of American diplomatic missions to full parity.

The anti-Russian policy of the previous US administration has affected bilateral dialogue on current international issues.

Washington dramatically curtailed arms control and non-proliferation discussions in 2014, as well as contacts between the military. At the same time, the two countries continue to implement the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, signed on April 8, 2010, in Prague (which entered into force on February 5, 2011, and expires in ten years with the option to extend). One of the most problematic issues in the military-political domain remains the deployment of the US missile defence system. Washington has not been willing to address Russian concerns and essentially cut off dialogue on this issue even before the Ukrainian events.

Since 2014 trade and economic cooperation has become hostage to the negative political environment. In 2015, bilateral trade fell 28.1 per cent to $20.9 billion, Russian exports declined 10.6 per cent to $9.5 billion, while US exports declined 38.1 per cent to $11.4 billion. In 2016, trade also declined 3 per cent to $20.3 billion compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, Russian exports declined 1.1 percent to $9.4 billion, while imports dropped 4.6 per cent to $10.9 billion.

This year bilateral trade was up 19.7 per cent in January-July compared with the same period in 2016 ($12.5 billion compared to $8.8 billion), Russian exports increased 23.7 per cent ($5.8 billion), while imports increased 16.5 per cent ($6.8 billion). Russia’s trade deficit stands at $1 billion.

In 2016, the US share in Russia’s foreign trade was 4.3 per cent (fifth among our trade partners). Russia's share in US foreign trade was 0.5 per cent.

In recent years, parliamentary contacts have declined dramatically due to resistance from US Congress members to work with Russian parliamentarians. Following the introduction of sanctions against leading figures of the Federal Assembly, there have only been occasional contacts between legislators.

There are several dozen bilateral intergovernmental and interagency agreements between Russia and the US covering various sectors, such as transport, emergency response and other issues. In September 2012, an agreement on easing visa formalities came into force, focusing on issuing three-year multiple visas.

Russia has on numerous occasions proposed resolving the numerous “irritants” created by Washington in bilateral relations. During Rex Tillerson’s visit to Moscow, an agreement was reached to conduct special consultations involving Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov and US Under Secretary of State Thomas Shannon. The first such consultation was held on May 8, 2017 in New York, and the second on July 17 in Washington. However, the US showed no willingness to look for constructive solutions on difficult bilateral issues.

On September 11–12, Sergey Ryabkov and Thomas Shannon again held consultations on bilateral issues in Helsinki, reviving the strategic dialogue severed by the Obama administration in the spring of 2014.

Cultural ties and contacts between people are still strong but not without problems. In particular, the situation around the Schneerson collection is still impeding cultural exchange. A moratorium on cultural loans from Russian state museums remains in effect due to the threat of seizure following the 2010 ruling by a Washington court granting ownership of a Russian collection of historical books on Judaism to the Chabad religious organisation in violation of international law. Meanwhile, negotiations on a proposed by Russia draft bilateral treaty on immunity for cultural objects to be exhibited, which was coordinated in general, were discontinued by the US in 2014.

The Foreign Ministry’s interdepartmental working group for preserving Russian historical and cultural heritage in the United States was established in 2017 as a new mechanism for coordinating efforts to somehow improve Russian-American cultural and humanitarian ties. It includes staff members of both chambers of the Federal Assembly, the Ministry of Culture,  the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Federal Archival Agency (Rosarkhiv), the State Archive  of the Russian Federation (Gosarkhiv), the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo), the Federal Agency for Scientific Organisations, the Moscow Government,  the Vologda and Tyumen regions, the Yakutsk City Hall, the Russian Geographical Society, the Russian Military History Society, MGIMO University, the Diplomatic Academy, Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of US and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World History, All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature, the Russkiy Mir (Russian World) Foundation, the Chkalov International Memorial Charitable Foundation, the Solzhenitsyn House of Russia Abroad, the Russian Academy of Arts, the State Museum of Oriental Art, Transneft, Renova and Sovcomflot, Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, Interfax News Agency and other organisations.

Members of this working group have developed a busy programme of bilateral cultural and humanitarian contacts for the near and medium term. In particular, a series of large-scale bilateral events have already been held, including the celebration of memorable dates such as the 80th anniversary of the legendary flights of the crews led by Valery Chkalov and Mikhail Gromov, the Fort Ross Dialogue Forum for Russia-US political, business and academic communities in Pskov, Izborsk and San Francisco, the 880th anniversary of Totma in the Vologda Region, the 205th anniversary of Fort Ross, the 200th anniversary of the arrival of a Russian squadron in Hawaii and remote regions in Alaska, the Echo of Russian America conference at the Ryazan State University, a trip by a group of Russian scientists to Alaska and other events.

The group will also work on promising initiatives to expand archival cooperation, including the digitalisation of documents about Russian America stored in American government and private archives, as well as the archives of the Orthodox Church in America, and making them available for the public.

The group also takes measures to preserve or return Russian cultural objects from personal collections of famous cultural figures, as well as those of prominent emigrants, and drafts plans to intensify cooperation with US museums and research agencies.