1. US – Russian Relations Most experts agree relations between the United States and Russia are good. The two countries still have differences, but they increasingly work together on a wide range of issues.

2. The cold war The Cold War can be traced to May 1945. Over the next half century, the United States squared off against the Soviet Union on political, economic, and propaganda fronts.

3. Periods of the cold war The Korean War (1950-53) became of international importance when North Korea, supplied and advised by the Soviet Union, invaded the South, which was joined in the war by the United Nations, with the United States as the principal participant. Cuban missile crisis The presence of a ballistic missile on a lauching site in Cuba was reported on October 14, 1962, prompting U.S. President John F. Kennedy to place a naval "quarantine," or blockade, on Cuba.

4. Periods of the cold war The Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, signed in the wake of the crisis, was the preface to a massive stockpiling of nuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union over the next two decades. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 in support of the Afghan communist government in its conflict with anticommunist Muslim guerrillas and remained in Afghanistan until mid- February 1989.

5. Periods of the cold war Long the symbol of the Cold War's division of East Berlin from West Berlin and the division of eastern from western Europe, its fall in 1989 came to stand for the fall of communism and the soon-to-follow end of the Cold War.

6. Experts say: “reset” in relations. 1. Obama launched shortly after coming into office almost three years ago has generated important achievements. 2. The ratification by both countries of the New START treaty reducing long-range nuclear weapons. 3. The agreement allowing U.S. military transports to transit through Russia into Afghanistan.

7. But the two sides still disagree on U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Europe. Russia say about the situation in Libya and Syria : The conflict where the West and the US in particular demonstrated a zeal for intervention that struck at Russia's sense of sovereignty and of what the UN should and shouldn't do. US say about the situation in Libya and Syria : revealing Russia's revived obstructionist tendencies on the Security Council and demonstrating Russia's determination to protect an old ally at the expense of the Syrian people.

8. «Mr. Putin is to return to Russia's presidency, bringing with him a blame-the-west perspective for explaining many of Russia's ills.» Frank Augstein/AP "I foresee a tough year for US-Russia relations," says Andrew Weiss, a former director for Russian affairs on the National Security Council.