Russia–United States relations

"The Russians are like us... They are fine people. They got along with our soldiers in Berlin very well. As far as I am concerned, they can have whatever they want just so they don't try to impose their system on others."

"The Russians are liars; you can't trust them. At Potsdam they agreed to everything and broke their word. It's too bad the second world power is like this, but that's the way it is, and we must keep our strength."

"The American people and their Government have set the strengthening of peace as their highest purpose in the New Year. I myself am wholly committed to the search for better understanding among peoples everywhere. "Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men" need not be an illusion; we can make it a reality. The time for simply talking about peace, however, has passed--1964 should be a year in which we take further steps toward that goal. In this spirit I shall strive for the further improvement of relations between our two countries. In our hands have been placed the fortunes of peace and the hope of millions; it is my fervent hope that we are good stewards of that trust."

"On the eve of the New Year 1964, we want to extend to the American people and you and your family personally on behalf of the people of the Soviet Union and ourselves New Year's greetings and very best wishes. The past year was marked by a significant improvement in the approach to the solutions of urgent international problems and in the development of Soviet-American relations. The conclusion of the Moscow treaty limiting nuclear testing was a good beginning, and demonstrable evidence of the fact that, given a realistic assessment of the actual world situation, cooperation of governments in resolving urgent international problems and achieving mutually satisfactory agreements is entirely possible. We would like to hope that the coming year will be marked by further significant successes, both in the resolution of important international problems and the improvement of relations between our countries, in the interest of the Soviet and American peoples and the interests of strengthening world peace."

"Yet the Americans did more than just equip themselves for total war. They also equipped their Allies. It is well known that the system of Lend-Lease provided a vital multi-billion pound economic lifeline to Britain. Net grants from the United States totalled £5.4 billion between 1941 and 1945, on average around 9 per cent of UK gross national product. Less well known are the vast quantities of material that the Americans made available to the Soviets. All told, Stalin received supplies worth 93 billion roubles, between 4 and 8 per cent of Soviet net material product. The volumes of hardware suggest that these official statistics understate the importance of American assistance: 380,000 field telephones, 363,000 trucks, 43,000 jeeps, 6,000 tanks and over 5,000 miles of telephone wire were shipped along the icy Arctic supply routes to Murmansk, from California to Vladivostok, or overland from Persia. Thousands of fighter planes were flown along an 'air bridge' from Alaska to Siberia."

"Nor was it only hardware that the Americans supplied to Stalin. Around 58 per cent of Soviet aviation fuel came from the United States during the war, 53 per cent of all explosives and very nearly half of all the copper, aluminium and tyres, to say nothing of the tons of tinned Spam - in all, somewhere between 41 and 63 per cent of all Soviet military supplies. American engineers also continued to provide valuable technical assistance, as they had in the early days of Magnitogorsk. The letters 'USA' stencilled on the Studebaker trucks were said to stand for Ubit Sukina sina Adolf - 'to kill that son-of-a-bitch Adolf.' The Soviets would have struggled to kill half so many Germans without this colossal volume of aid. It was not an aspect of what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War that Stalin was particularly eager to publicize. But without this vast contribution of American capital - as both Marshal Zhukov and Stalin's successor Nikita Khrushchev privately conceded - the Soviet Union might well have lost the war or would, at least, have taken much longer to win it. If the Red Army the Germans faced in the summer of 1943 was a more formidable foe than the one that had all but collapsed in the summer of 1941, this was in significant measure a result of American assistance."

"Liberal Russophobia has become a powerful force responsible for deterioration of U.S.-Russia relations. The coalition of liberal Russophobes include those in Congress, media and think tanks who believe that Russia aims to destroy the U.S.-centered “liberal” international order and that President Donald Trump’s attempts to negotiate with the Kremlin do more harm than good. Those sharing these views also... want to take away from the president the prerogative of conducting relations with Russia."

"The [U.S.] military/security complex has resurrected its Cold War enemy so necessary for its outsized budget and power and intends to keep Russia as The Enemy. The Democrats have an interest in the villification of Russia as “Russiagate” explains Hillary’s loss of the 2016 Presidential election and gives Democrats hope of removing President Trump from office. The media lacks independence, knowledge, and integrity and is the tool used by the military/security complex to control explanations... As strategic and Russian studies are largely funded by the military/security complex, the universities are also complicit in the march toward nuclear war. Republicans are as dependent as Democrats on funding from the military/security complex and the Israel Lobby."

"All of this self-serving is driving America and its vassals to war with Russia, which might also mean with China. The war would be nuclear and be the end of the West, an act of self-genocide. The US national security establishment is so crazed that Trump’s efforts to get off the war track and onto a peace track are characterized as treason and a threat to US national security."

"[President Trump] is]... perfectly right when he says we should have better relations with Russia. Being dragged through the mud for that is outlandish... Russia shouldn’t refuse to deal with the United States because the U.S. carried out the worst crime of the century in the invasion of Iraq, much worse than anything Russia has done But they shouldn’t refuse to deal with us for that reason, and we shouldn’t refuse to deal with them for whatever infractions they may have carried out, which certainly exist. This is just absurd. We have to move towards better—right at the Russian border, there are very extreme tensions, that could blow up anytime and lead to what would in fact be a terminal nuclear war, terminal for the species and life on Earth. We’re very close to that... First of all, we should do things to ameliorate it. Secondly, we should ask why. Well, it’s because NATO expanded after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in violation of verbal promises to Mikhail Gorbachev, mostly under Clinton, partly under first Bush, then Clinton expanded right to the Russian border, expanded further under Obama... The fate of... organized human society, even of the survival of the species, depends on this. How much attention is given to these things as compared with, you know, whether Trump lied about something?"

"The basic U.S. policy has been to threaten to destabilize countries and perhaps bomb them until they agree to adopt neoliberal policies and privatize their public domain. But taking on Russia, China and Iran is a much higher order of magnitude. NATO has disarmed itself of the ability to wage conventional warfare by handing over its supply of weaponry – admittedly largely outdated – to be devoured in Ukraine. In any case, no democracy in today’s world can impose a military draft to wage a conventional land warfare against a significant/major adversary. The protests against the Vietnam War in the late 1960s ended the U.S. military draft, and the only way to really conquer a country is to occupy it in land warfare. This logic also implies that Russia is no more in a position to invade Western Europe than NATO countries are to send conscripts to fight Russia. That leaves Western democracies with the ability to fight only one kind of war: atomic war – or at least, bombing at a distance, as was done in Afghanistan and the Near East, without requiring Western manpower. This is not diplomacy at all. It is merely acting the role of wrecker. But that is the only tactic that remains available to the United States and NATO Europe. It is strikingly like the dynamic of Greek tragedy, where power leads to hubris that is injurious to others and therefore ultimately anti-social – and self-destructive in the end."

"The problems with Russia are not just NATO expansion. There were also a process that began with the second Bush administration of withdrawing from all of the arms control — almost all of the arms control agreements that we had concluded with the Soviet Union, the very agreements that had brought the first Cold War to an end.... In effect, what the United States did after the end of the Cold War was they reversed the diplomacy that we had used to end the Cold War, and started sort of doing anything, everything the opposite way. We started, in effect, trying to control other countries, to bring them into what we called the “new world order,” but it was not very orderly. And we also sort of asserted the right to use military whenever we wished. We bombed Serbia in the ’90s without the approval of the U.N. Later, we invaded Iraq, citing false evidence and without any U.N. approval and against the advice not only of Russia but of Germany and France, our allies. So, the United States — I could name a number of others — itself was not careful in abiding by the international laws that we had supported."

"Unfounded accusations. Several years ago, the United States started accusing Russia of violating the INF Treaty, without providing any evidence. We basically had to pry the information from the US, information that would help us understand... what they meant. The US eventually mentioned the 9M729 missile, claiming that it had been tested on certain days at a certain testing site, and that the range violated the treaty’s provisions. Our data concerning these tests showed the opposite. The missile’s range is allowed under the treaty."

"NATO foreign ministers met several days ago to support the US position. According to media reports, they did this after Washington presented certain irrefutable documents confirming that the treaty was violated. If this is so, we have not received any such documents from the US side. This is what we have been asking the US to do for a long time. We are still ready for a serious and professional discussion. Instead, the Americans resort to unfounded accusations, and again and again, from high rostrums, make allegations for the entire international community to hear about things that should first be clarified with the other party to the treaty. This would be a more appropriate, polite and correct approach."

"When we are accused...Every time a problem occurs, we ask very specific questions. For example, the crash of the Malaysian Boeing in Ukrainian airspace in July 2014. Where is the data from the Ukrainian radars? We provided our data. Where are the records of what the Ukrainian dispatchers said? No answer. Where is the data from American satellites that surely exists? No answer again. The questions are very specific. So in the case of Salisbury, where are the Skripals? There is no room for “highly likely” here. There can only be two answers here: yes or no, alive or not. Therefore, it is very difficult..."

"Despite the Robert Mueller report’s conclusion that Donald Trump and his campaign did not collude with Russia during the 2016 presidential race, the new Cold War with Moscow shows little sign of abating. It is used to justify the expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders, a move that has made billions in profits for U.S. arms manufacturers... It is used to demonize domestic critics and alternative media outlets as agents of a foreign power. It is used to paper over the Democratic Party’s betrayal of the working class and the party’s subservience to corporate power. It is used to discredit détente between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. It is used to justify both the curtailment of civil liberties in the United States and U.S. interventions overseas—including in countries such as Syria and Venezuela. This new Cold War predates the Trump presidential campaign. It was manufactured over a decade ago by a war industry and intelligence community that understood that, by fueling a conflict with Russia, they could consolidate their power and increase their profits."

"Let me just start with Putin’s major address [1 March 2018]... It was really something. Not only did he advertise a whole new generation of strategic weaponry, which he claimed, and no one has disproved, would render the billions of dollars that we have wasted on antiballistic missile defenses useless. They’re useless to begin with, most scientists and engineers say, but these new weapons that he advertised, and some of which he said are operational, would upend that... he also said, Now, we tried to get you to listen to us. You wouldn’t listen to us. Now, hopefully, you will listen to us. Let’s get together at the appropriate time with experts and figure out how we address these problems, in other words, talks on arms control..."

"Now, a couple days later he’s talking about the strategic relationship and somebody says, Now, Mr. Putin — this is in an interview... six days later—somebody says, Hey, listen, Mr. Putin...would you destroy the whole world? If there were a first strike on Russia, would you really respond? It would be too late to save Russia.... Look, He says, yes, this would be a global catastrophe, but “as a citizen of Russia and as the head of the Russian state, I ask, What need will we have for a world if there was no Russia?” So he’s saying, Look, you’ve got to take this stuff seriously. Yes, we would retaliate, even if it meant that the rest of the world would be blown up as well as Russia."

"Two days later, four senior senators, okay, three Democrats—let’s see if I can remember them — Feinstein, Wyden, the fellow up there in Massachusetts, and Bernie Sanders—they issue a call, a letter to then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Look, this is really getting out of hand. We don’t like the fact that Putin is brandishing these weapons that we really haven’t ever heard of before, but he’s calling for arms control talks, so let’s talk. Let’s talk. Guess what? That appeal appeared on all those four senators’ websites but was totally—totally — ignored by what passes for the mainstream media. So one suspects that this is an unwelcome subject, and there is proof positive... we're talking about four senior senators appealing for arms control talks on their websites but it never getting past their websites, no publicity for it. I’m thinking that Chuck Schumer said, No, no. Arms control, no, no... Don’t mention arms control talks. So that’s the reality in the mainstream media."

"...Putin’s looking at all this. He knows who “the crazies” are and he knows that Bolton has a lot of influence. So this is a very destabilizing thing, because when the Russians keep telling us, Look, we’ve got these new weapons, well, you know, the press says, Ah, they’re faking it, they’re probably faking it. You know, I don’t know if they’re faking it or not. But, my God, if we knew about all this, why is it not in the annual intelligence briefing that is given to both the House and to the Senate early each year? It’s missing. All we get is rhetoric about how bad the Russians are, just as if they were the old Soviet Union, ideologically determined to bury us..."

"Trump had been calling for better relations with Russia during his presidential campaign... Stooping to a new low, Friday’s (New York) Times headline screamed: “F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia.” For those interested in evidence — or the lack of it— regarding collusion between Russia and the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, we can thank the usual Russia-gate promoters at The New York Times and CNN for inadvertently filling in some gaps in recent days....NYT readers had to get down to paragraph 9 to read: “No evidence has emerged...”"

"Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) — including two “alumni” who were former National Security Agency technical directors — have long since concluded that Julian Assange did not acquire what he called the “emails related to Hillary Clinton” via a “hack” by the Russians or anyone else. They found, rather, that he got them from someone with physical access to Democratic National Committee computers who copied the material onto an external storage device — probably a thumb drive. In December 2016 VIPS explained this in some detail in an open Memorandum to President Barack Obama. Clinton’s PR chief... later admitted that she golf-carted around to various media outlets at the convention with instructions “to get the press to focus on... the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and stolen emails from the DNC, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton.” The diversion worked like a charm. Mainstream media kept shouting “The Russians did it,” and gave little, if any, play to the DNC skullduggery revealed in the emails themselves."

"There is particular danger at the moment that powerful political alignments in the United States are pushing strongly to exacerbate the developing crisis with Russia. The New York Times, which broke the story that the Kremlin had been paying the Afghan Taliban bounties to kill American soldiers, has been particularly assiduous in promoting the tale of perfidious Moscow. Initial Times coverage, which claimed that the activity had been confirmed by both intelligence sources and money tracking, was supplemented by delusional nonsense from former Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice, who asks “Why does Trump put Russia first?” before calling for a “swift and significant U.S. response.” Rice, who is being mentioned as a possible Biden choice for Vice President, certainly knows about swift and significant as she was one of the architects of the destruction of Libya and the escalation of U.S. military and intelligence operations directed against a non-threatening Syria"

"The mutual trust that emerged with the end of the Cold War was severely shaken a few years later by NATO's decision to expand to the east. Russia had no option but to draw its own conclusions from that."

"All this saber-rattling is despicable. Neither Russia nor Iran threaten the U.S. and there is no reason why the U.S. should be eager to defend Taiwan or Ukraine (and also Israel). China’s military budget is miniscule compared to the U.S. and the only real threat it represents is as a competitor on world markets, where it is already dominant in a number of key sectors. The U.S. has to get off this global dominance militarism wagon but how do we do it when both major parties embrace it?"

"...I am simply baffled by what appears to be the prevailing view in this country... that Russia is somehow a threat to the United States....While I certainly understand it is in the interest of the military-industrial complex... to continue to vilify Russia in order to justify our already-bloated military spending... Russia was our ally in WWII in defeating the Nazis. And, contrary to what most Americans are taught, it was Russia that truly won that war in Europe, having lost over 20 million people to the war... 80 percent of the... Nazi['s] kills... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties USA lost ~400,000... certainly since 1960 and up to the present time, the U.S. has been much more brutal and blood-thirsty than Russia. It is not even a close call..."

"It is these U.S. wars, along with the U.S.’s over 800 military bases in more than 70 countries (Russia has bases in only one country (Syria) outside the former Soviet Union) which has led to the U.S. rightly being viewed in a poll of people in 65 countries as by far the greatest threat to world peace... President Trump’s expressed desire to stop antagonizing Russia and to work with it... should be welcomed as eminently reasonable and indeed necessary to avoid a possible nuclear confrontation. This should also be welcome by an American public whose resources have been drained by the greatest military-spending spree by far on the planet....Certainly, liberals, who at least once stood for peace and for greater social spending, should be in the lead in cheering such overtures instead of drumming up anti-Russian hatred which can only lead to more war and more impoverishment of our society."

"In case you’ve been living in a cave the last few weeks, here’s latest news scoop riling the United States: Russia has been paying the Afghan Taliban bounties for American scalps. How do we know? Because the New York Times tells us so, and the Times is not the kind of paper to make stuff up. But how does the Times know it’s true? Because sources say so, sources so super-sensitive and high up that it can’t reveal their names. All it can say according to in a front-page exposé that ran on June 26 is that they consist of “officials briefed on the matter” and “officials [who] spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the delicate intelligence and internal deliberations.” ..It’s all true even though the Times can’t say who its sources are because … because … well, just because it can’t... Still, the Times wants us to believe since the effect is to discredit two of its top bêtes noires, Trump and Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, not only has U.S. intelligence compiled a record of accuracy over the last two decades that couldn’t be more dismal, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who ran the CIA for fifteen months in 2017-18, actually bragged about the agency’s skill in misleading the public. As he put it, “We lied, we cheated, we stole … we had entire training courses.”"

"So after lying about everything from weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to “golden showers” in the Moscow Ritz Carlton, why should we believe the “intelligence community” now when it says it’s telling the truth?... In any case, why not play along...? But we can’t for one simple reason: the chances of the story being true... are somewhere between zero and one percent. Why? Let’s start with the most obvious. An assertion by some spook or other is not the same thing as evidence... Rather, it’s an opinion... the report doesn’t even make sense. Not only have the Taliban been at war with the United States since 2001, they’re winning. So why should Russia pay them to do what they’ve been happily doing on their own for close to two decades? Contrary to what the Times wants us to believe, there’s no evidence that Russia backs the Taliban or wants the U.S. to leave with its tail between its legs. Quite the opposite as a quick glance at a map will attest."

"Dear President Biden, We last communicated with you on December 20, 2020... we alerted you to the dangers inherent in formulating a policy toward Russia built on a foundation of Russia-bashing. While we continue to support the analysis contained in that memorandum... We wish to draw your attention to the dangerous situation that exists in Ukraine today, where there is growing risk of war unless you take steps to forestall such a conflict... 1. It must be made clear to Ukrainian President Zelensky that there will be no military assistance from either the US or NATO if he does not restrain Ukrainian hawks itching to give Russia a bloody nose — hawks who may well expect the West to come to Ukraine’s aid in any conflict with Russia.... . We recommend that you quickly get back in touch with Zelensky and insist that Kiev halt its current military buildup in eastern Ukraine. Russian forces have been lining up at the border ready to react if Zelensky’s loose talk of war becomes more than bravado.... 3. It is equally imperative that the U.S. engage in high-level diplomatic talks with Russia to reduce tensions in the region and de-escalate the current rush toward military conflict. Untangling the complex web of issues that currently burden U.S.-Russia relations is a formidable task that will not be accomplished overnight. This would be an opportune time to work toward a joint goal of preventing armed hostilities in Ukraine and wider war."

"Ever since Gorbachev naïvely ended the Cold War, the hugely over-armed United States has been actively surrounding Russia with weapons systems, aggressive military exercises, NATO expansion. At the same time, in recent years the demonization of Vladimir Putin has reached war propaganda levels. Russians have every reason to believe that the United States is preparing for war against them, and are certain to take defensive measures. This mixture of excessive military preparations and propaganda against an “evil enemy” make it very easy for some trivial incident to blow it all up. As is so often the case, Hillary doesn’t say what is true, but grabs the chance to show how anti-Putin she is. She is ready to push every adversary as far as possible, apparently certain that the “bad guy” will back down—even if it happens to be nuclear-armed Russia."

"With regard to nuclear weapons, the situation is far more dangerous than the last Doomsday Clock report. New weapons systems under development are much more effectively dangerous. The Biden administration, expanding upon Trump’s confrontational approach, has Chomsky at a loss for words to describe the danger at hand. Only recently, Biden met with NATO leaders and instructed them to plan on two wars, China and Russia. According to Chomsky: “This is beyond insanity.” Not only that, the group is carrying out provocative acts when diplomacy is really needed. This is an extraordinarily dangerous situation."

"The degradation of mainstream American press coverage of Russia, a country still vital to US national security, has been under way for many years. If the recent tsunami of shamefully unprofessional and politically inflammatory articles in leading newspapers and magazines — particularly about the Sochi Olympics, Ukraine and, unfailingly, President Vladimir Putin — is an indication, this media malpractice is now pervasive and the new norm."

"Ukraine is another media triumph. Respectable liberal newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian', and mainstream broadcasters such as the BBC, NBC, CBS, CNN have played a critical role in conditioning their viewers to accept a new and dangerous cold war. All have misrepresented events in Ukraine as a malign act by Russia when, in fact, the coup in Ukraine in 2014 was the work of the United States, aided by Germany and NATO. This inversion of reality is so pervasive that Washington's military intimidation of Russia is not news; it is suppressed behind a smear and scare campaign of the kind I grew up with during the first cold war. Once again, the Ruskies are coming to get us, led by another Stalin, whom The Economist depicts as the devil. The suppression of the truth about Ukraine is one of the most complete news blackouts I can remember. The fascists who engineered the coup in Kiev are the same breed that backed the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Of all the scares about the rise of fascist anti-Semitism in Europe, no leader ever mentions the fascists in Ukraine - except Vladimir Putin, but he does not count."

"Many in the Western media have worked hard to present the ethnic Russian-speaking population of Ukraine as outsiders in their own country, as agents of Moscow, almost never as Ukrainians seeking a federation within Ukraine and as Ukrainian citizens resisting a foreign-orchestrated coup against their elected government. There is almost the joie d'esprit of a class reunion of warmongers. The drum-beaters of the Washington Post inciting war with Russia are the very same editorial writers who published the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction."

"We are concerned about what the US and its closest allies are doing with respect to Venezuela, brazenly violating all imaginable norms of international law and actually openly pursuing the policy aimed at overthrowing the legitimate government in that Latin American country... According to our sources, the leaders of the opposition movement who have declared ‘dual power’ are in fact receiving instructions from Washington not to make any concessions until the authorities agree to abdicate in some way. Together with other responsible members of the international community, we will do everything to support President Maduro’s legitimate government in upholding the Venezuelan constitution and employing methods to resolve the crisis that are within the constitutional framework... Given signals coming from the EU and... Caribbean countries, as well as...China and India... we would like to figure out what the international community could do to prevent another blatant violation of international law and violent regime change... This is what I discussed yesterday with the Iranian foreign minister, who - just like us - wants to find an opportunity for external players to prove themselves useful to the Venezuelan people."

"Putin's Russia is our adversary and moral opposite. It is committed to the destruction of the post-war, rule-based, world order built on American leadership and the primacy of our political and economic values… There is no placating Putin. There is no transforming him from a gangster to a responsible statesman. Previous administrations have tried and failed not because they didn’t try hard enough, but because Putin wants no part of it."

"One of the more interesting aspects of the nauseating impeachment trial in the Senate was the repeated vilification of Russia and its President Vladimir Putin. To hate Russia has become dogma on both sides of the political aisle, in part because no politician has really wanted to confront the lesson of the 2016 election, which was that most Americans think that the federal government is basically incompetent and staffed by career politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell who should return back home and get real jobs. Worse still, it is useless, and much like the one trick pony the only thing it can do is steal money from the taxpayers and waste it on various types of self-gratification that only politicians can appreciate. That means that the United States is engaged is fighting multiple wars against make-believe enemies while the country’s infrastructure rots and a host of officially certified grievance groups control the public space."

"It is especially important to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S."