Anti-American sentiment in Russia

Anti-American sentiment has been present in Russia for a long time, dating back to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Relations were frozen until 1933, when the US President Franklin Roosevelt decided to establish diplomatic relations with the USSR. The US and the USSR fought alongside each other in World War II, but following the end of the war, the United States was opposed to the Soviet Union's military occupation and domination of Eastern Europe. As tensions grew into the Cold War, relations became hostile with large-scale war plans, but no direct war took place.

Tensions between the two states were briefly relaxed in the 1970s owing to the detente, but relations took a turn for the worse again in the early 1980s with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. By 1989, the communist governments in the Eastern European Soviet satellite states were overthrown, and in 1991, the USSR itself was dissolved, leading to a brief era of cooperation between the US and the newly-formed Russian Federation. With the advent of the 21st century, relations gradually turned hostile, and the situation remains the same as of the writing of this article.

In the recent Russian polls, the United States and its allies have consistently topped the list of Russia's greatest enemies.^[1][2]