3) Russian-American relations and the points on which the 2 countries have sharp differences/ antagonisms such as:

The year 2012 ends on a rather sour note in US-Russia relations. Congress passed and Obama signed into law what I would describe as a very harmful Trade Bill, with Russia making a patently necessary but still pretty awkward response. The United States aspires to a mutually beneficial relationship with the Russian Federation based on respect for human rights and the rule of law, and supports the people of the Russian Federation in their efforts to realize their full economic potential and to advance democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.

There are two schools of political thought in the US. The first considers Russia to be a reincarnation of the Soviet Union, and while there may no longer be ideological differences between Russia and America, geopolitical conflicts remain. That is why the followers of this school see Russia as an unfriendly country and some even as a geopolitical enemy. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the mainstream American media holds these views, and this influences public opinion accordingly.

The second school consists of pragmatists who realize that Russia has made, within a relatively short period, substantial progress in freedom, human rights, and democracy. They understand that this is not enough, that more progress is needed. However, even as a rather imperfect democracy, Russia can still be a very important geopolitical partner for the US and Europe and must be treated accordingly.

a) the US project to install anti-ballistic missiles in Poland? The Chezh Republic

Former US President George W Bush had signed deals to base interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic.President Bush planned it as part of a missile defence shield to counter what it described as threats from rogue states such as Iran. But a furious Russia objected.

The US has been developing a missile defence system intended to destroy incoming ballistic missiles potentially coming from North Korea and Iran. This involves using radars in Alaska and California in the US and at Fylingdales in the UK. Another radar is planned for Greenland However, the US also planned to install 10 more interceptors in silos in Poland, and build a radar station in the Czech Republic there was a gap in its anti-missile defences. It was to begin with the first interceptors in place in Poland by 2011 and the system fully operational by 2012.

Moscow said that the anti-missile missiles in Poland and the radar in the Czech Republic could threaten its own defences. The system might be small to start with, it said, but could expand. The radar could be used to spy on Russia. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that "we will not be hysterical about this, but we will think of retaliatory steps".

US President Barack Obama has cancelled plans to station an anti-ballistic missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic in 2009.

b) Magnitsky Act- response of the Russian Federation +c) the problem of the adoption of Russian children in USA

The Magnitsky Act, formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, is a bipartisan bill which was passed by the U.S. Congress in November–December 2012. The bill was signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 14, 2012. The main intention of the law was to punish Russian officials who were thought to be responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky by prohibiting their entrance to the United States and use of their banking system. The bill was passed to impose sanctions on persons responsible for the detention, abuse, or death of Sergei Magnitsky, and for other gross violations of human rights in the Russian Federation, and for other purposes. The Obama administration made public a list of 18 individuals affected by the Act in April 2013.

Russian authorities, acting through Goldman Sachs Bank, reportedly hired a public relations company led by Kenneth Duberstein to lobby against the legislation. The Russian foreign ministry has called the Senate decision a "performance in the theater of the absurd", and Russian President Vladmir Putin said, "This is very bad. This, of course, poisons our relationship" with the United States. While Russian officials desired to pass a proportional response in their own legislature, a proposal to similarly deny entrance to Americans guilty of gross human rights violations would have less of an impact on the United States than the Magnitsky bill, since fewer Americans take vacations or own assets in Russia than Russians do in the United States. On December 19, 2012, the State Duma voted 400 to 4 to ban the international adoption of Russian children into the United States. The bill was unofficially named after Dmitri Yakovlev^(ru) (Chase Harrison), a Russian toddler who died in 2008 of heat stroke after neglect from his adoptive American father. Other recent developments include the introduction of a law to prevent US citizens from working with political NGOs in Russia, and a law, recently abandoned, preventing any foreigner from speaking on state television if they discredited the state. On April 13, 2013, Russia released a list naming 18 Americans banned from entering the Russian Federation over their alleged human rights violations, as a direct response to the Magnitsky list.