section_path: History/First Trump administration (2017–2021)/2017
section_name: 2017
paragraph_text: 2017
  
  A week after Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017, Trump had a 52-minute telephone conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin that was hailed by both governments as a step towards improvement of relations between the U.S. and Russia; the presidents agreed to arrange a face-to-face meeting for a later date.
  
  In early March 2017, the U.S. military for the first time publicly accused Russia of having deployed a land-based cruise missile (SSC-8) that they said violated the "spirit and intent" of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and posed a threat to NATO.
  
  On March 25, 2017, the U.S. imposed new sanctions against eight Russian companies in connection with the Iran, North Korea, Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA).
  
  The cruise-missile strikes on the Syrian Shayrat Airbase, conducted by the U.S. on April 7, 2017, as a response to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, were condemned by Russia as an "act of aggression" that was based on a "trumped-up pretext", which substantially impaired Russia–United States relations. Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev said the attack had placed the U.S. on the cusp of warfare with Russia. Both Donald Trump in April and the Russian government in May characterised the relationship between the countries as frozen and lacking any progress; in early June, Vladimir Putin said relations were at an all-time low since the end of the Cold War. In mid-June 2017, the Russian foreign ministry confirmed that, for the first time ever, Russia had failed to receive a formal greeting from the U.S. government on occasion of Russia's national day celebrated on June 12.
  
  In April 2017, Trump's administration denied a request from ExxonMobil to allow it to resume oil drilling in Russia. In July 2017, ExxonMobil filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government challenging the finding that the company violated sanctions imposed on Russia.
  
  On May 10, 2017, Trump had an unannounced meeting in the Oval Office with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak. During the meeting he disclosed highly classified information, providing details that could have been used to deduce the source of the information and the manner in which it was collected, according to current and former government officials. Although the disclosure was not illegal, it was widely criticized because of the possible danger to the source.
  
  On July 6, 2017, during a speech in Warsaw, Poland, Trump urged Russia to cease its support for "hostile regimes" in Syria and Iran. On July 7, 2017, in what appeared to be a sign of good relations between the leaders of both countries, Trump met with Putin at the G20 Hamburg summit in Germany and described the meeting as "an honour."
  
  In mid-July 2017, the Russian foreign ministry noted that the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, following expulsion of diplomats by the Obama administration in December 2016, far exceeded the number of Russian embassy employees in Washington and indicated that the Russian government was considering retaliatory expulsion of more than thirty-five U.S. diplomats, thus evening out the number of the countries' diplomats posted. On July 28, Russia announced punitive measures that were cast as Russia's response to the additional, codified, sanctions against Moscow passed by Congress days prior, but also referenced the specific measures imposed against the Russian diplomatic mission in the U.S. by the Obama administration. Russia demanded that the U.S. reduce its diplomatic and technical personnel in the Moscow embassy and its consulates in St Petersburg, Ekaterinburg and Vladivostok to four hundred fifty-five persons — the same as the number of Russian diplomats posted in the U.S. — by September 1; Russia's government would also suspend the use of a retreat compound and a storage facility in Moscow used by the U.S. by August 1. Two days later, Vladimir Putin said that the decision on the curtailment of the U.S. diplomatic mission personnel had been taken by him personally and that 755 staff must terminate their work in Russia. After the sanction bill was on August 2 signed by Donald Trump, Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev wrote that the law had ended hope for improving U.S.–Russia relations and meant "an all-out trade war with Russia." The law was also criticised by Donald Trump, whose signing statement indicated that he might choose not to enforce certain provisions of the legislation that he deemed unconstitutional.
  
  Russia protested on September 2, 2017, against a search it said U.S. officials were planning of a Russian trade mission building in Washington D.C., shortly after the U.S., "in the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians", demanded that Russia shut two of its diplomatic annexes (buildings) in Washington D.C. and New York City as well as its Consulate General in San Francisco. The Russian foreign ministry said the inspection would be "illegal" and an "unprecedented aggressive action"; it also demanded that the U.S. ″immediately return the Russian diplomatic facilities″.
  
  In November 2017, Trump and Putin both attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Danang. Although they had no formal meeting they spoke informally several times during the event.
  
  At the end of 2017, CNN concluded that a series of steps undertaken by the first Trump administration within a mere week before Christmas such as naming Russia a "rival power" and ″revisionist power″ (along with China), imposing sanctions on Ramzan Kadyrov, a close Putin ally, the decision to provide Ukraine with anti-tank weapons, coupled with tougher line from the State Department about Moscow's activities in eastern Ukraine, and accusations from the Pentagon that Russia was intentionally violating de-confliction agreements in Syria, highlighted "a decided turn away from the warmer, more cooperative relationship with Russia that President Donald Trump called for during his campaign and early in his presidency". In February 2018, echoing Donald Trump's own statement, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: " has been tougher on Russia in the first year than Obama was in eight years combined."