Condoleezza Rice's Tenure As Secretary of State - Russia

Russia

In April 2005, Rice went to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin. On the plane trip over, she related comments critical of Russia's democratic progress to reporters. "Trends have not been positive on the democratic side," said Rice. "There have been some setbacks, but I do still think there is a considerable amount of individual freedom in Russia, which is important." In person Rice told Putin: "We see Russia as a partner in solving regional issues, like the Balkans or the Middle East."

In late 2005, there was a dispute between Russia and Ukraine after Russia decided to quadruple the price of energy being provided to the Ukrainian market (Ukraine was receiving heavily subsidized prices for gas from Russia, the increase would have made the price equal to that of the current market price). Rice subsequently criticised Russia's actions, accusing Russia of using its gas wealth as a political weapon. She called on Russia to behave as a responsible energy supplier and stated that the act did not show the international community "that it is now prepared to act ... as an energy supplier in a responsible way." Rice insisted, "When you say you want to be a part of the international economy and you want to be a responsible actor in the international economy, then you play by its rules ... I think that kind of behavior is going to continue to draw comment about the distance between Russian behavior and something like this and what would be expected of a responsible member of the G8."

Though there was some question over whether or not Rice could convince Russia not to block the United States's move to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council in early 2006 (because of Russia's economic and diplomatic ties to Iran), Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov eventually called Rice to confirm that Russia had agreed to allow the move.

In February 2006, Rice described the United States's relationship with Russia as "very good," saying, "In general, I think we have very good relations with Russia. Probably the best relations that have been there for quite some time. We cooperate in the war on terror. We cooperate in a number of areas. Obviously we have some differences, too. But on the Iranian situation, we've actually had very good cooperation with the Russians."

In February 2007, Putin criticized US plans to expand European missile defenses. “Who needs the next step of what would be, in this case, an inevitable arms race?” Putin also characterized US military action as illegitimate, indicating “They bring us to the abyss of one conflict after another. 'Political solutions are becoming impossible. Rice soon responded “"Everybody understands that with a growing Iranian missile threat, which is quite pronounced, that there need to be ways to deal with that problem and that we are talking about long lead times to be able to have a defensive counter to offensive-missile threats” In April 2007, Rice indicated that Russia’s concerns over the missile defense system were “ludicrous;” Putin responded by suggesting imposing a moratorium on an arms control treaty that NATO countries had long refused to ratify.