The United States and Russia

The two countries hold nine tenths of the world's nuclear weapons and have been adversaries, with one short interval, for eighty years. Since 2022 the United States has armed Ukraine and led the sanctions against Russia. Since 2025 it has also been talking to Moscow directly, over the heads of Kyiv and the Europeans, about ending the war, reviving business and what follows the last nuclear treaty, which expired in February. Washington is at once Russia's opponent, its negotiating partner and the mediator between it and Ukraine.

Where it stands · September 2026

In September 2026 the US Congress passed a Russia sanctions bill, and Trump signed it with new tariff powers. Russia placed Nestle and Auchan under temporary state control. The EU dropped sanctions on two Russian oligarchs after infighting. Trump invited Putin to the G20 summit in Miami.

What the dispute is about

Russia's place. Moscow wants to be treated as a great power with a say over its neighbourhood, above all over Ukraine's alignment. Washington has for thirty years refused any country such a say, in principle, and is now divided over whether to concede some of it in practice.

The terms of peace in Ukraine. Russia demands territory, Ukraine's neutrality and the lifting of sanctions. The United States wants the fighting stopped and has moved between pressing Kyiv to accept terms and pressing Moscow with sanctions.

Nuclear weapons. No treaty now limits either arsenal, for the first time since 1972.

How each side explains it

Washington's account

Under this administration: the war should never have begun, is a European problem the last president mismanaged, and has driven Russia into the arms of China, which is the real rival. Talking to Moscow is realism. America offers Russia a way back into trade in exchange for peace, keeps sanctions as the lever until it takes it, and will not pay for Ukraine's defence indefinitely. Congress, including most of the president's party, holds the older view: Russia attacked a neighbour, interfered in American elections, and answers only to pressure.

In our coverage

Reopened US-Russia channel and energy waivers are pragmatic realism →19 headlines
Covered by:OilPrice · France 24 (EN) · Channel NewsAsia · CNN · Die Zeit · Euronews

Moscow's account

Russia was promised in 1990 that NATO would not move east, and watched it advance to its borders. America bombed Belgrade, left the missile defence treaty, invaded Iraq, and in 2008 declared that Ukraine would join NATO. Russia's objections were ignored until it acted. Events have since shown that Russia cannot be isolated or defeated, and the West must recognise the results. This administration speaks more sensibly than the last, but it still arms Kyiv, passes new sanctions in the middle of talks, and cannot make its allies or its own Congress keep its word.

What each account leaves out

Washington's leaves out that it mediates a war in which it supplies one side's weapons and targeting; that it eased oil sanctions this spring when its own war with Iran raised prices; and that a year and a half of direct talks has not produced a ceasefire.

Moscow's leaves out that it signed a guarantee of Ukraine's borders in 1994; that it was Russia that sent its army across them; and that it has refused each ceasefire offered while blaming others for prolonging the war.

Kyiv's and the Europeans' leaves out that they refused any contact with Moscow for three years and so have no channel of their own; and that they cannot sustain the war without the American arms and intelligence they fear losing.

The ledger