title: Jack Welch

text: Welch also often received criticism for a lack of compassion for the middle class and working class. When asked about excessive CEO pay compared to ordinary workers (including backdating stock options, golden parachutes for nonperformance, and extravagant retirement packages), Welch labeled such allegations "outrageous" and vehemently opposed proposed SEC regulations affecting executive compensation. Countering the public uproar, Welch declared that CEO compensation should continue to be dictated by the "free market", without interference from government or other outside parties.


title: Jack Welch

text: Welch's income and assets came under particular scrutiny during his divorce from his second wife, Jane Welch, in 2001, for adultery with the woman who became his third wife. Court filings during the divorce described Welch's GE compensation, which led to a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of the then-retired Welch's employment contracts with GE.


title: Jack Welch

text: In 1996, Welch and GE had agreed to a "retention package" worth $2.5 million, and which promised continued access after Welch's retirement to benefits he had received as CEO—including an apartment in New York, baseball tickets and the use of a private jet and chauffeured car. Welch stated that he did not want more money, nor a more traditional stock package, but instead preferred to retain the lifestyle he had enjoyed as GE's CEO. According to a 2008 interview with Welch, he had filed the agreement with the SEC, and addressed the media attention and accusations of being "greedy" by renouncing those benefits.


title: Jack Welch

text: In 2012, Welch and his third wife, Suzy Welch, quit their business associations with Fortune magazine and Reuters news service after "Fortune" published an article which criticized Welch's tweet, shortly before the 2012 election, which alleged that the Obama administration manipulated certain economic statistics, as well as another article which elucidated the 100,000 jobs GE lost during his tenure as CEO.


title: Jack Welch

text: Following Welch's retirement from General Electric, he became an adviser to private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and to the chief executive of IAC, Barry Diller. In addition to his consulting and advisory roles, Welch had been active on the public speaking circuit and co-wrote a popular column for "BusinessWeek" with his wife, Suzy, for four years until November 2009. The column was syndicated by "The New York Times".


title: Jack Welch

text: In September 2004, the Central Intelligence Agency published a parody of Welch applying his management skills while serving as imagined Deputy Director of Intelligence.


title: Jack Welch

text: In 2005, he published "Winning", a book about management co-written with Suzy Welch, which reached No. 1 on "The Wall Street Journal" bestseller list and appeared on the "New York Times" Best Seller list.


title: Jack Welch

text: On January 25, 2006, Welch gave his name to Sacred Heart University's College of Business, which was known as the "John F. Welch College of Business" until 2016, when it began using the name the "Jack Welch College of Business". Since September 2006, Welch had been teaching a class at the MIT Sloan School of Management to a hand-picked group of 30 MBA students with a demonstrated career interest in leadership.


title: Jack Welch

text: In December 2016, Welch joined a business forum assembled by then president-elect Donald Trump to provide strategic and policy advice on economic issues.


title: Jack Welch

text: In 2009, Welch founded the Jack Welch Management Institute (JWMI), a program at Chancellor University that offered an online executive Master of Business Administration. The institute was acquired by Strayer University in 2011. Welch had been very actively involved with the curriculum, faculty and students since the beginning of the institution. JWMI's MBA program was recently named the number one most influential education brand on Linkedin and one of the top business schools to watch in 2016. The program has also been named one of the Top 25 Online MBA Programs four years in a row (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) by The Princeton Review. Its goal is not to make money, but to build over time focusing on the quality of the program and increasing the number of students enrolled year after year.


title: Jack Welch

text: At GE, Welch became known for his teaching and growing leaders. He had taught at MIT Sloan School of Management and taught seminars to CEOs all over the globe. "More than 35 CEOs at today's top companies [were] trained under Jack Welch". JWMI students had direct access to Welch and he hosted quarterly video conferences with his students.


title: Jack Welch

text: It is known that along with his video conferences, Welch created many video responses to messages on bulletin boards and answered individual emails. His investment in the university was also reflected in his interest in the institute's Net Promoter score (NPS). He administered surveys on satisfaction regularly and scrutinized the results to find scores that needed improvement. In an interview with "Wired Academic", Welch explained the overall status of his MBA program, stating that the persistence rate of students continuing on to a second year had grown from 90% to 95%, and that JWMI turns away very few students in the admissions process. He also said that he would like better leadership training for MBA students.


title: Jack Welch

text: Welch had four children with his first wife, Carolyn. They divorced amicably in 1987 after 28 years of marriage. His second wife, Jane Beasley, was a former mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer. She married Welch in April 1989, and they divorced in 2003. While Welch had crafted a prenuptial agreement, Beasley insisted on a ten-year time limit to its applicability, and thus she was able to leave the marriage reportedly with around $180 million.


title: Jack Welch

text: Welch's third wife, Suzy Wetlaufer (née Spring), co-authored his 2005 book "Winning" as Suzy Welch. She served briefly as the editor-in-chief of the "Harvard Business Review." Welch's wife at the time, Jane Beasley, found out about an affair between Wetlaufer and Welch. Beasley informed the "Review" and Wetlaufer was forced to resign in early 2002 after admitting to the affair with Welch while preparing an interview with him for the magazine. They married on April 24, 2004.


title: Jack Welch

text: Starting in January 2012, Welch and Suzy Welch wrote a biweekly column for Reuters and "Fortune", which they both left on October 9, 2012, after an article critical of Welch and his GE career was published by "Fortune".


title: Jack Welch

text: Welch identified politically as a Republican. He stated that global warming is "the attack on capitalism that socialism couldn't bring", and that it is a form of "mass neurosis". Yet he said that every business must embrace green products and green ways of doing business, "whether you believe in global warming or not ... because the world wants these products".


title: Jack Welch

text: Regarding shareholder value, Welch said in a "Financial Times" interview on the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, "On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy...your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products."


title: Jack Welch

text: After the Bureau of Labor Statistics released employment data stating that the U.S. unemployment rate had dropped from 8.1% to 7.8%, Welch tweeted, "Unbelievable jobs numbers ... these Chicago guys will do anything ... can't debate so change numbers". Welch stood by his tweet, stating if he could write it again, he would add question marks at the end to make it clear that his intention was to raise a question over the legitimacy of the numbers. A subsequent "New York Post" article on the employment data suggested manipulation of some of the survey responses by an individual employee in 2010, but that article was widely debunked, including the fact that the employee had not worked at the Bureau since 2011. No proof of the political manipulation of the job numbers from September 2012 has been presented. The Census Bureau later released a statement denying the possibility of systematic manipulation of the data. Still, in an opinion piece in "The Wall Street Journal", Welch wrote that the debate led to people looking at unemployment data more carefully and skeptically. Referencing his original tweet, he stated "Thank God I did", in a "Squawk Box" appearance, and also wrote, "The coming election is too important to be decided on a number. Especially when that number seems so wrong".


title: Jack Welch

text: In a 2015 article in "Harvard Business Review", business consultant Ron Ashkenas argues that "Jack Welch's approach to breaking down silos still works", citing examples of engineering companies who have discovered for themselves that "fragmented, geographically dispersed" patterns of organization make it "very difficult ... to coordinate efforts across functions, keep everyone focused on the cost and delivery goals and get people to reach consensus".


title: Jack Welch

text: Welch has been criticized for practices that have harmed workers and the company: he eliminated thousands of jobs at GE, contributing to a reduction of the U.S. manufacturing base. He eliminated 10% of employees every year, a practice adopted by many other companies. He was a leading proponent of mergers and acquisitions, helping to give rise to an economy that is more concentrated and less dynamic. He pioneered "financialization", changing GE from a manufacturing company into, effectively, an unregulated bank, which harmed GE over the long term.


title: Jack Welch

text: As of late 2021, General Electric planned to break into three public companies and effectively cease to exist. The companies would separately operate in the aviation, health care and energy markets. As of 2021, GE was headed by H. Lawrence Culp Jr. who was named in 2018 as its fourth CEO since Welch's departure.


title: Jack Welch

text: Welch's practices were described as contributing to widespread damage to corporate America by author David Gelles in 2022.


title: Jack Welch

text: On March 11, 2010, Welch cameoed as himself in the NBC sitcom "30 Rock", appearing in the season four episode "Future Husband". In the episode, Welch confronts Alec Baldwin's character, Jack Donaghy, to confirm the sale of NBC Universal to a fictional Philadelphia-based cable company called Kabletown. The sale is a satirical reference to the real-world acquisition of NBC Universal from General Electric by Comcast in November 2009.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Bondage in BDSM, is the activity of tying or restraining people using equipment such as chains, cuffs, or collars for mutual erotic pleasure. According to the Kinsey Institute, 12% of females and 22% of males respond erotically to BDSM.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A number of bondage positions and methods are used in rope bondage and other BDSM activities. Ropes are a common element of these positions, although straps, webbing, chains, hooks, manacles, spreader bars, collars, common furniture, purpose built frames, various gags and monogloves may also be used. The ties and frictions often are variants of Japanese bondage, "shibari" and "kinbaku" from where they derived.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The ball tie is a bondage position in which a person is bound into a ball position with the knees against the shoulders. A ball position (also called a fetal position) can be tightly bound so that the legs are also bent double so the heels press against the buttocks; the legs must be brought up so that the thighs are pressed against the chest. Pressing the thighs tightly against the abdomen may restrict breathing.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The hands may be tied either in front or behind the back, however behind the back is more typical. If behind, there may also be elbow bondage, or the arms may be in a reverse prayer position, with ropes round the arms and torso (or arms and legs) to hold the arms firmly against the back. If in front, the arms may be tied hugging the legs, or possibly with each wrist bound to the opposite elbow. The ankles may also be tied together, as well as the knees. Typically, the ankles are tied to the thighs in a frogtie.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Sometimes the submissive wears high-heeled shoes and has ropes wrapped round the heels and fixed to the wrists. This adds to the visual impact, and should be used as a supplement to other secure bondage. Under strain, the shoes may come off or the heels may break off. When tied this way, the shoes cannot be removed.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The head may be pulled back in some way, such as in head bondage. However, purists argue that this goes against the idea of binding into a ball. Alternatively, the head can be pulled forward to force the chin to press against the chest.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The position can be stringent while stimulating. At the same time, it is comfortable and the subject may remain in it for quite some time.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The ball tie is one of the positions possible in self-bondage. The mobility is limited so extra independent escape mechanisms should be used over and above the usual bondage precautions.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Hogtie bondage requires all four limbs to be tied together behind the back. It typically involves connecting a person's wrists and ankles behind the back using some form of physical restraints such as rope or cuffs, but may in some BDSM contexts also refer to the binding of "arms" and "legs" behind the back. The binding may be loose with the ankles and wrists some distance apart, or more stringent with all four bound together even with the wrists and ankles crossing and being cinched to the knee or shoulder harness.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A classic western hogtie would be made more stringent by binding together the elbows and binding together the knees.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A variation of the hogtie involves tying bound wrists to frogtied legs, providing the dominant easier access to the submissive's crotch for sexual play.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The hogtie position places pressure on the abdomen of the tied person, which may create difficulty in breathing known as postural asphyxia. Care should be taken to ensure the person being bound can breathe easily throughout all stages of play. This is particularly important if gags, collars or rope are used to create a more stringent tie.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The submissive's wrists are tied to the ankles, and the elbows attached to the knees. It is restrictive, allowing only the opening and closing of the legs and some rolling.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A (also known as an or a ) is a type of Kinbaku bondage. A chest tie, such as a box tie, is constructed. The participant sits cross-legged, and the ankles are tied together using a single column tie. The rope is looped over the participants neck (or chest harness), and back to the ankles; this is then progressively tightened, bringing the ankles up to the head.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Due to the forced bent-down position of the upper body, this position sends a burning sensation through the body if the subject remains in it for a long time. As the knees are widely spread, the position resembles the legs of a prawn or shrimp.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The shrimp tie originated over 300 years ago in 1742 in Japan as a torture and interrogation technique.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A "Gyaku ebi": A chest tie, such as a box tie, is constructed. The participant sits cross-legged, and the ankles are tied together using a single column tie. The participant is moved onto their stomach, and the rope is passed from ankles along the back, pulling them and securing them to the buttocks. This is also called the Japanese hog-tie.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A bondage rope harness (sometimes referred to as a bondage web, rope web, rope dress, or karada) is a binding which involves the tying of an intricate structure of rope around the body in a complex web-like fashion.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A rope harness is similar in effect to a leather bondage harness, in that both are not in themselves normally used to bind a person, but are used to apply pressure over the area bound and can provide securing points for other bondage techniques, including suspension bondage.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A rope harness uses around 10–15 m of rope to tie, and involves multiple passes of rope from front to back around the body to build up the characteristic diamond-shaped rope pattern. It typically starts from a rope halter, the double rope with four specifically placed overhand knots falls down the body, and is pulled loosely beneath the crotch and up to the back of the neck halter. The single strands are then passed from back to front, looping into the stem or using Munter hitches. In some cases, a rope harness may extend beyond the torso, into diamond-patterned webs that extend down the length of the arms or legs.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Though a rope harness is not normally used to bind the limbs, it can be used for that purpose by simply going around the arms rather than under. A rope harness can be used with a crotch rope or a shinju ("pearl") breast harness.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The Japanese term "shibari" means simply "a tie", while "kinbaku" is a decorative tie; where the aim is to produce a beautiful rope pattern around the body.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The Japanese term "karada" means simply "body". Traditionally, a distinction was made between "kikkou" ("turtle-shell" pattern; hexagonal) and "hishi" (diamond) patterned ties, although many modern sources just use the term "kikkou" to refer to any rope body harness.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A crotch rope (known in Japanese bondage as "Matanawa", "Sakura"  or Sukaranbo ) is a rope that passes between the labia to apply painful or pleasurable pressure to the vulva. The rope is anchored by being tied around the waist. A crotch rope is most commonly made of hemp or jute, but webbing, straps or a harness are also used. It is sometimes combined with other bondage techniques.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A crotch rope may be tied over clothing or directly onto the skin; it can be worn under clothing or in full view. While crotch ropes are most commonly used on women, variations exist for use on men.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A crotch rope may consist of either a single line running between the legs to stimulate the genitals, or two lines running either side of them to leave them exposed. In the former case, the rope may pass between the labia majora or deeper through the pudendal cleft of the vulva. Knots can be tied in the rope to apply specific pressure to the anus or clitoris. A crotch rope is usually fixed in place by tying it to a rope around the waist just above the hips or by tying the two ends to a fixture. Crotch ropes are sometimes used in BDSM activities, especially on female submissives, most commonly as a part of tease and denial. A crotch rope is sometimes combined with the damsel in distress pose used in silent films, where the arms are tied together behind the back at the elbows and wrists, and the legs are tied together at the knees and ankles.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: For abrasion play if the rope is not tied to the waist it can be moved forward and backward between the labia or the subject can be made to walk across it.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The ropes may be wrapped tightly around the waist and tied off in front, fed down across the genitals, then pulled back up behind and tied to other cords wrapped around the wrists, doubling as a cinch to tighten them further. This allows the rope bound person some ability to vary pressure on the genitals (often causing sexual stimulation) at the cost of reduced freedom of movement. If such a cord is pulled extremely tight the wrists and arms will have very little freedom of movement particularly when combined with elbow bondage and the hands will be firmly forced in contact with the buttocks.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The frogtie is a lower-body bondage position in which a person's legs are bent fully at the knees. They are bound separately ankle-to-thigh, and also just behind the knee, in the likeness of a crouched frog. The knees may be left free, closely together or widely spread. This is the starting point of many other ties.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: This tie places the person in a position where they are vulnerable but not completely immobilized and can still move about, albeit in an awkward crawling motion. The frogtie, with the person restrained so, can also be used as a restrictive sex position or as a basis for more restrictive bondage. The bound person's wrist tie can also be tethered to some sort of immovable ring by an arbitrary length of cord, allowing some limited freedom of movement while preventing escape. Kinbaku enthusiasts could use a futumomo tie.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The wrists on each side are often then tied to the ankle/thigh combination on their respective sides, although it is possible to tie each wrist to the opposite ankle and make the position noticeably more strict.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: In a similar position, the person's wrists are simply bound to their corresponding ankles. However, that position cannot be fully considered as a frogtie, because it does not match the "bound ankle-to-thigh" condition.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The legs may be tightly together, colourfully describes as virgin, together, apart, widely apart described as the slut position. The submissive can be standing, kneeling or sitting, or with the knees drawn up to the chest. Standing may be relaxed, on tiptoe or at the most extreme, en pointe.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Some more flexible submissives are comfortable sitting in the yoga, Lotus position. Some sit naturally crosslegged.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The box tie is a tie of the chest and upper arms, and is combined to create with ties of the lower limbs as a component or variation of other ties. Both arms are supported in parallel behind the back by a core and made immobile by a tensioned rope connecting the midpoint of the upper arms.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The TK wrap or shibari box tie, "gote shibari", is a single column tie of the upper body. It is also called a "takate kote". The forearms are placed in parallel high behind the back. This forms the starting point for the tie that has a top rope that encircles the torso and arms just below the shoulder, tying back to a central point, creating a "stem" down to the forearms. This is the distinguishing feature of the box-tie. A lower rope encircles the arms and torso at a midpoint between the upper rope and elbow, tying back to the stem.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: TK wraps are used in suspension bondage, and if the ropes are misplaced the body weight can crush the radial nerve leading to the serious and possibly irreversible condition known as wrist drop. There is no absolutely safe position for the top wrap; the mid-point gap between the triceps and the deltoid muscles is the most problematic.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The cross-chest boxtie replaces the top rope by one that passes over the shoulder and back under the opposite arm, reverses tension and then repeats over the other shoulder.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A more strenuous alternative is the elbows together tie, which can lead to a strappado, or the reverse-prayer ties The over-arm ("Hasenohren") or bunny ears ties, method is another way of restraining the hands.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Breast bondage is a bondage technique which involves the tying of rope around a woman's breasts in a visually intricate and decorative pattern. Breast bondage most commonly uses rope, but webbing, straps or a harness may also be used.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Breast bondage often focuses on the decorative, aesthetic and erotic aspects of the result, and not on immobilization of the female subject. However, breast bondage can be combined with other techniques which restrict the subject's mobility and can provide securing points for other bondage plays, such as crotch rope and breast torture. Hence it can be used as an expression of dominance and submission as well as an aesthetic kink.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Breast bondage can be applied over clothing or directly to the skin, and can be worn under clothing or in full view. rope, ribbon, or leather straps can be used.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The basic breast bondage technique involves tying ropes around the base of the breasts, causing them to bulge outwards. Usually, the same rope is used for both breasts so that the rope harness is automatically held together at the front. The rope may then also be fixed behind the back, to make a sort of bra.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Another technique is to put a rope around the torso just above the breasts, and another one just below them, then push the ropes together to squeeze the breasts from the top and bottom. This can be done instead of, or as well as, the other method. A rope can also be passed over the shoulders and between the breasts, drawing the rope above and below the breasts together, then pass back over the shoulders to the knots at the back. The primary rope can be used to place cinches between the arms and the body.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: "Shinju" (from the Japanese 真珠 meaning pearl) is a euphemism to refer to the binding of female breasts. It has been popularly claimed that "shinju" is an authentic Japanese term for a "bikini harness". However, no such tie called a "shinju" is found in historic or present kinbaku.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The basic or foundational kinbaku form of binding the arms and breasts is known as the Ushiro Takatekote, which is to bind the arms behind (ushiro) the back in a box arm position (takate kote). This basic box arm tie, originally found in the samurai martial art of hojōjutsu (捕縄術) or Nawajutsu, (縄術) evolved into its erotic usage at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century, and is the foundation of most other kinbaku ties.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Sometimes, breast bondage is combined with other bondage techniques. For example, the woman's arms can be tied behind her back, in an elbow or box tie or in a reverse prayer position. When combined with breast bondage, bound arms force the woman's chest and breasts to protrude further. When combining breast and arm bondage, the ropes can draw the ropes above and below the breasts together at the sides of the breasts as they pass under the shoulders and behind the neck, thus resulting in rope effectively surrounding the breasts.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Breast bondage can play an integral part in suspension bondage. If the subject is being suspended, particularly in a horizontal position such as a suspended hogtie, breast bondage is used as the main supporting area under the chest.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: To describe a rig, a whole vocabulary has evolved. When the arms are crossed over the chest like a mummy: this is Egyptian, if they touch the opposite shoulders: this is a double-V. When both wrists are secured together behind the waist: this is a strappado. When a wrist is pulled behind the back and up to the opposing shoulder we have a hammerlock. When the wrists are in front of the body and the elbows tied with a spreader bar behind: this is a waitress. This hands may be on the head, or behind the neck or in an over-arm tie. They may be on the soles of the feet, on the ankles, on the opposite ankles on the knees, to the side crossed in front or holding the opposite elbow.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A captive tie or over-arm tie (Kotobu Ryo-tekubi), is a bondage position in which a person's wrists are fastened behind the person's head using some form of physical restraints, such as rope or cuffs to which is attached a length of rope, chain or strap the other end of which is attached to a belt at the waist or other anchoring point.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: People who practice rope bondage see this as a short term or temporary tie, to be used to restrain the submissive while moving to another room, or a warm up introductory tie. It is not inescapeable. This simple over-arm tie is sometimes used in sexual foreplay and in tickling games where it prevents the submissive from protecting their ticklish spots.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The wrists are tied together in front with a double column tie. They are taken over the head and the rope falls down the centre of the back. It is passed around the lower chest and looped around itself, it is reversed and the fall is tightened and centred, the rope passes back in front of the chest and is locked off at the centre back. Spare rope can be passed up to wrists tightening the tie. To use this as a permanent tie, the tension is reduced and a further rope is passed between the upperarms, closing the space under the elbows.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The over-arm tie may be used as a part of more complicated bondage. For example, the back rope can be passed between the legs and fastened in front, forming a crotch rope. The wrists may be tied to the upper arms with any desired tension, from a loose tie to a strict tie where the wrists are almost touching the upper arms. The over-arm tie can be combined with other techniques which restrict the subject's mobility further, such as hogtie bondage, frogtie or the shrimp tie for the legs, or by securing the tied wrists to a fixed frame. In this position, the elbows stick out on each side, level with the head, with the hands tied behind the head.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: This is an asymmetric arm tie, where one arm is taken behind the back, and the other arm is taken over the shoulder.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The reverse prayer position, a technique used in BDSM play, involves restraint of a person's arms by binding them behind the person's back, with the hands placed between the shoulders, with the fingers of both hands straight, extended, and the palms of the hands touching each other. The wrists are bound together. It is similar to the traditional prayer position, but with the arms behind, rather than in front of, the bound person, thus preventing use of the arms. Someone bound in the position may need careful monitoring. Many people find the position painful after a time, and cramps may set in.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: To immobilize the arms further, ropes or a strap are often placed round the arms and torso, pressing the arms against the back. On a woman, this can conveniently be linked to ropes for breast bondage. Another technique is to fix ropes from the elbows to a belt or other ropes round the body.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: In bondage fiction, people in this position are sometimes forced to have their elbows touching, turning this into a form of elbow bondage. Very few people can adopt this position without dislocation of the shoulders. However, with many people, it is possible to press the elbows together slightly and tie them in that position.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Head bondage, in BDSM play, includes all techniques used to apply control to the head of the subject. It may refer to one of several techniques:


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The straps of a head harness are generally secured by buckles that fasten at the back of the head. Head harnesses are most commonly used to provide points of attachments to secure various kinds of gags, such as ball gags, bit gags, muzzle gags and ring gags, although they also have other uses, such as providing attachment points for other forms of bondage, or may be used simply for their psychological effect. Head harnesses may also function as a gag by themselves, by restricting the ability to open the mouth, or have a mouth cover as an integral part.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Head harnesses, like many other forms of bondage, also have the effect of creating a sense of objectification and erotic helplessness in the wearer, which can be erotic for the wearer, or for those observing them. Many head harnesses are designed with straps that pass in front of the wearer's eyes, restricting their vision, and further increasing the sense of objectification and erotic subjugation. Some have full blindfolds.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The spread eagle position is also employed as a bondage position in BDSM play, sometimes horizontally otherwise vertically and even upside down. This is a comfortable position, the submissive lies face up on their back with all four limbs secured to the furniture. Face down would be called prone. The ties can be slack allowing movement or more severe. The position allows for total front access, but none to the rear, so it excludes spanking games. Penetration is limited by the low angle.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A standing or hanging spread eagle position can be achieved using equipment such as an X-cross (also referred to as Saint Andrew's cross) or spreader bars or with ropes or chains attached to different endpoints. As an erotic humiliation technique, it forces the subjects to display their genitals and to provide access to the crotch, groin or anal region.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Specialist bondage furniture with anchor points is manufactured. It encompasses cages, frames, stocks, chairs and tables. Standard household furniture can be discretely adapted. For instance, a bed can be adapted using a restraints kit; webbing attached to leather cuffs is placed under the mattress. A ladder back chair, offers anchor points for binding the legs high in the air, or behind.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Strappado bondage is a term describing a position and technique used in BDSM play. A person's arms are bound behind their back, then by use of some method of attachment such as a rope or chain that runs from their wrists to a securing point above, their arms are lifted behind them until the person is forced to bend forward. While the strappado bondage position is considered to be a form of BDSM play, it shares its basic principles of restraint with the method of torture and therefore can very easily become just that if not practiced safely.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The different styles of the strappado bind can be summarized as follows and these can be combined with crotch ropes and breast bondage, gags or blindfolds. The exact technique used is very much related to the purpose of using this particular position in BDSM play:


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: It intentionally reduces the subject's ability to struggle, as the body is placed in an awkward position such and any struggling on their part, could result in their losing balance. As a result, the subject chooses not to move for fear of falling over.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: It creates a sense of vulnerability in the subject's mind by exposing their buttocks and genital area.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: When the elbows are bound together, even for very flexible subject it is rarely possible to bind them to touch, for as arms are lifted towards a horizontal position, the shoulder joints shift into a different position preventing the usual movement that should occur when the elbows are drawn together. Irrespective of this any elbow bondage, even minor, applied in this manner may severely increase tension and pain.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The use of head bondage allows the subject's head to be pulled back to a front-facing position as opposed to hanging towards the floor and is often used to make the subject perform oral sex. In addition to the restrictiveness that this causes, if a suitable ring gag is used the subject may feel increasingly exposed to penetration and because the subject's head is facing down drooling may also occur.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The normal reaction of the subject is to increase the forward bending as the arms are lifted. By further lifting the arms beyond a critical point this may become too difficult or even physically impossible to continue without lifting themselves off the floor and force them to stand more upright and increase the strain on the shoulder joints. The subject can also be secured to e.g. a frame and ropes or chains substituted for other bondage devices. By completely immobilizing the subject's body the person in the dominant position can have complete and precise control over the tension and pain experienced.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: A form of predicament bondage is to tie one foot of the subject to the opposite thigh or another body part so they have to concentrate on not causing more pain. Their arms are raised to the point where they have to stand on their toes. To relieve pain in their foot they must lower their body and cause more pain in their shoulders. To relieve pain in their shoulders they must stand on tip-toes and cause more pain in their foot and leg. Another variation is to tie the subject's foot to a body part of another subject so they can relieve their own pain but increase it for the other subject.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: With the breasts pointing towards the floor, the use of nipple clamps, possibly with weights attached, can be used to stimulate the subject with more pain.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Strappado bondage is most commonly used with the subject's feet on the ground. Very rarely will someone use this technique with their feet off the ground, because of the pain and possibly severe injury this can cause.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Due to the difficulty of maintaining this position, this type of BDSM play does not allow for long periods of being bound. Its major use is for sexual play with the bound subject. While bound like this, the subject is open to the use of various tools such as floggers, whips, etc., as well as general spanking. This position can also be used for sexual intercourse, or the use of vibrators and/or dildos to stimulate the bound person.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: This bondage position is also used as a form of torture, therefore measures are usually taken to ensure that the subject bound in this position is not pushed beyond their physical capabilities. Any position that moves limbs into an extreme position and holds them there for an extended period of time can result in damage—sometimes permanent—to even the most flexible of people. It is possible, though very rare, for extreme iterations of this position to cause asphyxiation, as being suspended in this way can constrict the lungs and cause respiratory distress. Therefore, it is a technique to be performed with safety foremost in mind.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Suspension bondage is a form of sexual bondage where a bound person is hung from one or more overhead suspension points. Suspension bondage is considered to carry a higher risk than other forms of sexual bondage and there is much attention to safety.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: In "partial suspension" the person is bound in a way that part of their body weight is held by suspension ropes, cables or chains. The classic partial suspension position is to have the person balancing on one foot with part of their weight supported through a chest harness and the other leg pulled up in some direction. A person lying on their upper back with legs tied upwards to a suspension point to pull their lower back off the ground would also qualify as partial suspension.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: In "full suspension" the person is completely supported by suspension ropes, cables or chains, and they have no contact with the ground. The position of the person's body in a full suspension may be horizontal, vertical or inverted; it is only limited by their endurance and the skill of the binder.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Metal can be used for bondage ties with handcuffs, metal hobbles and spreader bars. The rope used for Japanese bondage is made from natural fibres such as hemp, it is prepared by boiling to make it soft, but it is coarse and binds to itself: there is a lot of friction, so the knots hold fast.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: The two basic ties are the single-column tie, where the 'column' could be the end of a limb or an attachment point, and the double column tie which could be used to bind two limbs. They all start with a basic knot, and finish with securing the loose ends.


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: Overhand knot, Double overhand knot, figure-of-eight knot, square knot, half-hitches, clove hitch, Munter hitch, larkshead knot, prusik knot


title: Bondage positions and methods

text: There is basic advice on precautions to take at a BDSM session. This includes never leaving the bound subject alone, never performing under the influence of alcohol or drugs and always having shears available to cut the rope in case there is an emergency.


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: Dollars Trilogy (), also known as the Man with No Name Trilogy () or the Blood Money Trilogy, is an Italian film series consisting of three Spaghetti Western films directed by Sergio Leone. The films are titled "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964), "For a Few Dollars More" (1965) and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966). Their English versions were distributed by United Artists, while the Italian ones were distributed by Unidis and PEA.


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: The series has become known for establishing the Spaghetti Western genre, and inspiring the creation of many more Spaghetti Western films. The three films are consistently listed among the best rated Western films in history.


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: Although not Leone's intention, the three films came to be considered a trilogy following the exploits of the same so-called "Man with No Name" (portrayed by Clint Eastwood, wearing the same clothes and acting with the same mannerisms). The "Man with No Name" concept was invented by the American distributor United Artists, looking for a strong angle to sell the films as a trilogy. Eastwood's character does indeed have a name (albeit a nickname) and a different one in each film: "Joe", "Manco" and "Blondie", respectively.


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: The first film has the Man with No Name arriving, for unexplained reasons, in the Mexico–United States border town of San Miguel, base of two rival smuggling families, the Rojos and the Baxters. The Man with No Name (referred to by the old undertaker Piripero as "Joe") decides to play them against each other by collecting prizes for giving information, capturing prisoners and killing men, while also helping a woman, her husband and their son, held captive by the ruthless Ramón Rojo, to escape. He is discovered by the Rojos and tortured, but escapes. The Rojos massacre the unarmed Baxters while searching for him, but helped by Piripero he is hiding away from the town. The Man with No Name returns as the Rojos are preparing to hang the local innkeeper Silvanito, who had befriended him. He cold-bloodedly kills Don Miguel Rojo, uses his last bullet to free Silvanito, and engages and kills Ramòn in a gunslinging duel. After the last remaining Rojo brother, Esteban, is killed by Silvanito while trying to shoot from a window, the Man with No Name – knowing that the US and Mexican governments will investigate – departs from the now-peaceful town.


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: The second film introduces the Man with No Name (here nicknamed "Manco") as a bounty hunter killing bandits for money, as well as Colonel Douglas Mortimer, a middle-aged bounty hunter hunting for the same criminals. Both searching for the psychopathic Mexican bandit known as "El Indio", who just escaped from jail, they initially rival each other, but then understand that, in order to kill him, they must work together. Manco infiltrates El Indio's gang, while Mortimer acts from the outside. Manco discovers El Indio's elaborate plot to rob the Bank of El Paso, and is forced to take part in it, though he manages not to wound any innocents. Later, El Indio transfers his gang to Agua Caliente, Mexico, where Manco and Mortimer attempt to steal the money to take it back to the Bank. El Indio discovers their plot, but lets them escape as part of an operation to murder all but one of his associates in order to split the money in two instead of with the entire gang. Battle ensues between the bounty hunters and the bandits, according to El Indio's plan, as the two successfully kill all of them, and the one El Indio meant to spare is also killed. In the end, Manco discovers that Mortimer's hunt for El Indio is far more personal than his own, and lets him kill the bandit personally in a duel. Mortimer lets Manco keep all the money, and, now in peace with his past, rides away. Manco piles the bandit corpses in a horse-drawn cart and rides away with the stolen bank money to collect his bounty earnings.


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: In the third film, set during the American Civil War, Mexican bandit Tuco Ramírez and the Man with No Name (whom Tuco calls "Blondie") work together to scam small towns: Blondie will collect the bounties on Tuco and then free him as he is about to be hung. Meanwhile, a mercenary named "Angel Eyes" is shown to be searching for a man named "Jackson", who has stolen 200,000 dollars from the Confederate Army. Angel Eyes threatens the family of one of Jackson's former accomplices and learns that Jackson now goes under the alias of "Bill Carson" (who has already murdered both of his original accomplices). The partnership between Blondie and Tuco sours when Tuco complains that being repeatedly placed in a noose with only a single bullet standing between himself and death demands a larger cut than 50/50; Blondie immediately betrays Tuco, saying "The way back to town is only 70 miles... if a man like you holds your breath, I think you can manage it". Blondie is later caught out and tortured by a vengeful Tuco who first tries to put Blondie in a noose, but the raging war encroaches and drives them apart. Tuco then catches Blondie and drags him through "this hell [...] a hundred miles, that's a nice walk": the high desert. Tuco's erstwhile revenge is interrupted when they stumble upon a Confederate carriage carrying the bullet-riddled and barely-alive Bill Carson. Carson, bleeding and desperate for water, tells Tuco the name of the cemetery in which the gold is hidden – but while Tuco goes to get water, a dying Blondie manages to crawl past and get the name of the grave in which the treasure is buried just as Carson dies. Tuco realizes that he can't find the bounty without Blondie. The two form an uneasy alliance. During their journey to the treasure they are arrested by Union Army soldiers and brought to a prison camp in which Angel Eyes is posing as a Sergeant. Angel Eyes tortures Tuco into revealing his half of the secret and recruits Blondie to show him the grave. All three ultimately leave the prison. Blondie, Tuco, and Angel Eyes commence a game of betrayal and subterfuge. Tuco and Blondie are blocked by a brutal conflict between Union and Confederacy. Blondie subsequently tricks Tuco into revealing the name of the cemetery. The gunslingers eventually arrive at the graveyard where the treasure is hidden but find themselves in a three-way standoff with victory uncertain for anyone. Blondie takes up a burnt-ended cigar and a rock; he tells the others that he will write the name of the grave marker on the bottom of a stone. He then places the stone in the middle of the cemetery, and the film's iconic "Mexican standoff" duel begins. After the duel, Blondie takes his half of the money and leaving Tuco in a noose, balancing on an unstable grave stone. Blondie rides into the distance as Tuco curses him loudly. After Tuco nearly hangs himself, Blondie frees him from a distance using his rifle.


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: "A Fistful of Dollars" is an unofficial remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1961 film "Yojimbo" starring Toshiro Mifune, which resulted in a successful lawsuit by Toho.


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is considered a prequel, since it depicts Eastwood's character gradually acquiring the clothing he wears throughout the first two films and because it takes place during the American Civil War (1861–1865), whereas the other two films feature comparatively more modern firearms and other props. For example, Lee Van Cleef's character in "For a Few Dollars More" appears to be a Confederate veteran who has come down in the world, and a graveyard scene in "A Fistful of Dollars" features a gravestone dated 1874.


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: The only actors to appear in all three films besides Eastwood are Mario Brega, Aldo Sambrell, Benito Stefanelli and Lorenzo Robledo. Four other actors each appear twice in the trilogy, playing different characters: Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonté, Luigi Pistilli, and Joseph Egger.


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: The young boy at the beginning of "The good, the bad and the ugly" is the same boy who befriends Clint Eastwood in "For a Few Dollars More".


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: Composer Ennio Morricone provided original music score for all three films, although in "A Fistful of Dollars" he was credited either as "Dan Savio" or "Leo Nichols", depending on the print.


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: The "Dollars Trilogy" spawned a series of spin-off books focused on the Man with No Name, dubbed the "Dollars" series due to the common theme in their titles:


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: In July 2007, American comic book company Dynamite Entertainment announced that they were going to begin publishing a comic book featuring the Man with No Name, titled "The Man With No Name". Set after the events of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", the comic is written by Christos Gage. Dynamite refers to him as "Blondie", the nickname Tuco uses for him in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". The first issue was released in March 2008, entitled, "The Man with No Name: The Good, The Bad, and The Uglier". Luke Lieberman and Matt Wolpert took over the writing for issues #7–11. Initially, Chuck Dixon was scheduled to take over the writing chores with issue #12, but Dynamite ended the series and opted to use Dixon's storyline for a new series titled "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". Despite its title, the new series was not an adaptation of the film. After releasing eight issues, Dynamite abandoned the series.


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: The films had various VHS releases in Italy and in other countries, including some editions boxed together with Leone's other Spaghetti Western films ("Once Upon a Time in the West" and "Duck, You Sucker!").


title: Dollars Trilogy

text: The 1999 DVD, plus the 2010 and 2014 Blu-ray box set releases by MGM (distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment), make specific reference to the set of films as "The Man with No Name Trilogy".


title: 2022 AFL season

text: The 2022 AFL season was the 126th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior men's Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured eighteen clubs and ran from 16 March until 24 September, comprising a 22 game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top eight clubs.


title: 2022 AFL season

text: The premiership was won by the Geelong Football Club for the tenth time, after defeating by 81 points in the 2022 AFL Grand Final.


title: 2022 AFL season

text: The 2022 season is being played during the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the start of the season, the roll-out of Australia's vaccination program was almost complete with 95% of adults vaccinated to a two-dose standard and about 50% having received a booster; and across all states except for Western Australia, practically all social and interstate travel restrictions which had been in place through the latter half of 2021 had been lifted; Western Australia maintained some restrictions into the start of the season. Cases of the virus, particularly the omicron variant which became dominant in December 2021, were widespread in the community for the first time in the pandemic; and confirmed cases and their close contacts were still required to test and isolate, although for shorter periods than earlier in the pandemic.


title: 2022 AFL season

text: The pre-season series of games returned as the 2022 AAMI Community Series, with teams playing one game each. The games were stand-alone, with no overall winner of the series. All games were televised live on Fox Footy.


title: 2022 AFL season

text: and the opened the season in a rematch of the previous season's grand final. Accor Stadium hosted its first premiership match since the 2016 Qualifying Final, with a Sydney Derby between and fixtured for the ground in round one.


title: 2022 AFL season

text: The remainder of the fixture was released on 9 December, with only the first nine rounds released with dates and times for each match. The remainder of the fixture from round 10 was left as a floating fixture so as to prioritize the best matches for each round in prime-time slots, and dates were released progressively through the year. For the first time since 2001, some Friday nights had two scheduled games, with each double-header to take games away from a less-favourable or an otherwise occupied timeslot later in the weekend; the broadcast times of the two matches overlapped partially.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: Russia and the United States maintain one of the most important, critical and strategic foreign relations in the world. Both nations have shared interests in nuclear safety and security, nonproliferation, counterterrorism, and space exploration.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the relationship was generally warm under the Russian President Boris Yeltsin (1991–99) until the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999, and has since deteriorated significantly.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: Following Vladimir Putin 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. Deterioration continued with the Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War, and over Russia's interference in the 2016 and 2020 U.S. elections.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, relations reached the lowest point since the Cuban Missile Crisis. 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: Official contacts between the Russian Empire and the new United States of America began in 1776. Russia, while formally neutral during the American Revolution (1765–1783), favored the U.S.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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 (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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: Russia operated a small fur-trade operations in Alaska, 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 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: The Treaty of Portsmouth (1905), brokered by American President Theodore Roosevelt ended the Russo-Japanese War. In the late 19th century, American public opinion was shocked at the accurate reports of murderous anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire (mostly within the Pale of Settlement). 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: The U.S. participated in the allied military intervention against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War since August 1918, operating in the Russian Far East. Following the Bolsheviks′ victory in the Civil War and the establishment of the Soviet Union (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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: The United States and the Soviet Union, along with Britain, were the leaders of the Allies against the Axis powers during World War II. Following the onset of the Cold War in 1947, the North Atlantic Treaty 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 (NATO) designed to provide collective security against the Soviet Union.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: The first bilateral treaty between the U.S. and Soviet Russia/USSR was a consular convention signed in Moscow in June 1964. In 1975, the Helsinki Final Act 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 and acceptance of the Soviet annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that had been effected in 1940. The Act came to play a role in subsequently ending the Cold War.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In the 1970s—1980s, the USSR and the U.S. signed a series of arms control treaties such as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972), two Strategic Arms Limitation treaties (SALT), the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (1987); in July 1991 the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was concluded.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In the late 1980s, Eastern Europe nations took advantage of the relaxation of Soviet control under General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and began to break away from communist rule. The relationship greatly improved in the final years of the USSR.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: On December 3, 1989, Soviet general secretary Gorbachev and the U.S. president George H. W. Bush declared the Cold War over at the Malta Summit.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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. He later revealed that he had agreed to do so because James Baker 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: With Communism defunct, on December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved, and the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose association was formed by 12 of the 15 former Soviet constituent republics, leaving out the three Baltic states. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic became Russia. It was now an independent state that inherited the USSR's UN Security Council permanent membership and became the successor state to the USSR.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: Strobe Talbott, who was Washington's chief expert on Russia, has argued that Clinton hit it off with Russian Boris Yeltsin, the president of Russia 1991-1999:


title: Russia–United States relations

text: Relations between Yeltsin and the administrations of George H. W. Bush (1989–1993) and Bill Clinton (1993–2001) started off well, but deteriorated after 1997. Yeltsin and his foreign minister Andrey Kozyrev 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In 1993, both nations signed the START II arms control treaty that was designed to ban the use of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) on intercontinental ballistic missiles (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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: Russia stridently opposed the U.S.-led NATO military operation against Serbia and Montenegro over Kosovo 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 (at the start of the Second Chechen War) emphatically stating that Russia remained a nuclear power.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In 2001, in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, the new Russian president Vladimir Putin 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 that had harbored the Al-Qaeda 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In 2002, the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to move forward with plans for a missile defense system. Putin called the decision a mistake. Russia strongly opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, though without exercising its veto in the United Nations Security Council. Russia has regarded the expansion of NATO into the old Eastern Bloc, and U.S. efforts to gain access to Central Asian oil and natural gas as a potentially hostile encroachment on Russia's sphere of influence. The Russian leadership blamed U.S. officials for encouraging anti-Russian revolts during the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004. Putin saw intrusions into Russia's historic sphere of interest.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: Russia condemned the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo from Serbia 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".


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In early 2008, President George W. Bush vowed full support for admitting Ukraine and Georgia 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 and also negatively affect Russia's relations with the West.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In March 2007, the U.S. announced plans to build an anti-ballistic missile defense installation in Poland along with a radar station in the Czech Republic. Both nations were former Warsaw Pact 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, the RS-24, 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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,"


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: On August 14, 2008, the U.S. and Poland agreed to have 10 two-stage missile interceptors – made by Orbital Sciences Corporation – 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 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 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In November 2008, a day after Obama was elected president, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in his first annual address to the Federal Assembly of Russia announced plans to deploy Iskander short-range missiles to Kaliningrad, near the border with Poland, if the United States went ahead with its European Ballistic Missile Defense System.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In August 2008, United States-Russia bilateral relations became further strained, when Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war over the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. President Bush said to Russia, "Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century."


title: Russia–United States relations

text: Despite U.S.–Russia relations becoming strained during the Bush administration, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev (president from May 2008 until May 2012, with Vladimir Putin as head of government) and U.S. president Barack Obama 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 to abandon its nuclear program and to permit foreign inspectors into the country.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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[ing] the hand that [it] h[e]ld", 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: Biden's words, published shortly after his visit to Ukraine and Georgia, were interpreted by George Friedman of Stratfor as "reaffirm[ing] the 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".


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In March 2010, the United States and Russia reached an agreement to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons. The new nuclear arms reduction treaty (called New START) 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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; he also had a meeting with Russia's leading human rights 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: The 2011 military intervention in Libya prompted a widespread wave of criticism from several world leaders, including Russian President Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Putin, who said that "<nowiki>[</nowiki>UNSC Resolution 1973<nowiki>]</nowiki> is defective and flawed...It allows everything. It resembles medieval calls for crusades."


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In mid-September 2013, the United States and Russia made a deal whereby Syria's chemical weapons would be placed under international control and eventually destroyed; President Obama welcomed the agreement that was shortly after enshrined in the UNSC 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: Obama acknowledged Russia's role in securing the deal to limit Iran's nuclear program that was reached in July 2015, and personally thanked Putin for Russia's role in the relevant negotiations.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In May 2012, Russian general Nikolay Yegorovich Makarov said that there was a possibility of a preemptive strike on missile defense sites in Eastern Europe, to apply pressure to the United States regarding Russia's demands. In July 2012, two Tu-95 Bears were intercepted by NORAD fighters in the air defense zone off the U.S. coast of Alaska, where they may have been practicing the targeting of Fort Greely and Vandenberg Air Force Base. Later in August 2012, it was revealed that an had conducted a patrol within the Gulf of Mexico without being detected, raising alarms of the U.S. Navy's anti-submarine warfare capabilities.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: On December 14, 2012, U.S. President Barack Obama signed the Magnitsky Act, which "[imposed] U.S. travel and financial restrictions on human rights abusers in Russia". On December 28, 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill, widely seen as retaliatory, that banned any United States citizen from adopting children from Russia.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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. Air Force F-15 jets based on Andersen Air Force Base were scrambled to intercept the aircraft. The Russian aircraft reportedly "were intercepted and left the area in a northbound direction."


title: Russia–United States relations

text: At the end of 2013, Russia announced that a rearmament of the Kozelsk, Novosibirsk, Tagil Rocket divisions with advanced RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missiles was going ahead.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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 (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 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile capable of evading the existing anti-ballistic missile defenses.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In early June 2015, the U.S. State Department 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: Edward Snowden, 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. He was wanted on a criminal warrant by U.S. prosecutors for theft of government property and espionage.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: Following the collapse of the Viktor Yanukovych government in Ukraine in February 2014, Russia annexed Crimea on the basis of a controversial referendum 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 organized and sponsored by the U.S. government. Russian newspaper Kommersant alleges George Friedman (chairman of Stratfor) had agreed this was the "most blatant coup in history', which George Friedman says was taken out of context.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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." 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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 by contrast. In my view, that is a misguided position."


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In November 2016, the president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker 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."


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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 era.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: The end of 2014 saw the passage by the US of the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014, 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 of yet another round of sanctions.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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 from the country's natural gas industry.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: On September 30, 2015, Russia began the air campaign in Syria on the side of the Syrian government headed by president Bashar al-Assad of Syria. According to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov's statement made in mid-October 2015, Russia had invited the U.S. to join the Baghdad-based information center 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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 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'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 in Turkey, during which a certain consensus between the two leaders on Syria was reported to have been reached.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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 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."


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In mid-October 2016, Russia's U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin, 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 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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."


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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 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, 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".


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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", 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."


title: Russia–United States relations

text: The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 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."


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: On January 6, 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: A week after Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017, Trump had a 50-minute telephone conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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) that they said violated the "spirit and intent" of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and posed a threat to NATO.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: On March 25, 2017, the U.S. imposed new sanctions against eight Russian companies in connection with the Iran, North Korea, Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA).


title: Russia–United States relations

text: The cruise-missile strikes on the Syrian Shayrat Airbase, 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 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. 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In April 2017, Trump's administration denied a request from ExxonMobil 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: On May 10, 2017, Trump had an unannounced meeting in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak. 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.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: On July 6, 2017, during a speech in Warsaw, Poland, Trump urged Russia to cease its support for "hostile regimes" in Syria and Iran. 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."


title: Russia–United States relations

text: In mid-July 2017, the Russian foreign ministry noted that the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, 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. 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. 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 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 indicated that he might choose not to enforce certain provisions of the legislation that he deemed unconstitutional.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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 in San Francisco. 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″.


title: Russia–United States relations

text: 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.