Russia-U.S. Relations

Washington, D.C., January 7, 2026 - Russian president Vladimir Putin was the first foreign leader to call George W. Bush on his birthday in July 2001 and on the day of the 9/11 attacks, and the two presidents bonded over a shared toughness against terrorists, according to newly declassified transcripts of Putin-Bush conversations obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and published today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

Washington, D.C., December 23, 2025 - The verbatim transcripts of Vladimir Putin's meetings and telephone calls with U.S. president George W. Bush from 2001 to 2008 opened to the public yesterday as the result of a Freedom of Information lawsuit by the National Security Archive.

The documents show that Russian president Putin was Bush's close ally in 2001 with their shared anti-terrorism focus, Putin's on Chechnya and Bush's on Al-Qaeda, to the point that Bush exclaimed "You're the type of guy I like to have in the foxhole with me."

Washington, D.C., August 21, 2025 - Newly declassified notes from Vladimir Putin’s first presidential summit with an American leader reveal some of the constants in the Russian leader’s approach: flattery, banter about sports, appearing to agree while saying nyet, and history lectures, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information lawsuit and published today by the National Security Archive.

Washington, D.C., December 18, 2024 – A now-legendary but long-secret 70-paragraph telegram written by the top political analyst at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in March 1994, E. Wayne Merry, criticizing the American policy focus on radical economic reform in Russia, was published in full today for the first time by the National Security Archive.

Washington, D.C., July 9, 2024 - Hailed at the time as an historic change “burying” a Cold War rivalry, the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997 was privately characterized as a “forced step” by Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who told U.S. President Bill Clinton that he opposed NATO expansion but saw no alternative to signing the accord. Yeltsin’s blunt admission is one of several revelations from a new set of declassified documents published today by the National Security Archive to mark the NATO 75th Anniversary Summit in Washington.

Washington D.C., May 25, 2024 - The National Security Archive today marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 103rd birthday with the publication for the first time in English of his diary for 1984. A top aide to Mikhail Gorbachev who later became one of the most important scholars of the perestroika period, Chernyaev’s diary for 1984 documents his time as deputy director of the International Department of the Central Committee, responsible for the International Communist Movement (ICM).

Washington, D.C., April 4, 2024 - Top NATO and U.S. officials worked out cooperative agreements with senior Russian leaders including the defense minister of the newly independent Russian Federation during three years of high-level dialogue and hands-on engagement from 1992 to 1995, according to previously secret Russian and American documents published today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

Washington, D.C., March 21, 2024 - Vladimir Putin’s first election as president of Russia 24 years ago was “reasonably free and fair,” according to a declassified U.S. Embassy message from Moscow, one of ten documents on Russia’s 2000 presidential race published today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Written by then-U.S.

Washington, D.C., January 25, 2024 - Declassified highest-level records from the Moscow summit 30 years ago this month detail U.S. President Bill Clinton’s strong personal support for Russian President Boris Yeltsin, their close cooperation on security issues, and deep concern about Yeltsin backtracking on economic reforms newly understood by the Clinton team as too “harsh” on the Russian people.