The inscription etched on the wood paneling was almost mocking, given the terrible state of U.S.-Russian relations: “That our two nations never again polarize,” it intoned. “A keystone to peace in the 21st century is positive relations between the United States and Russia.”

But inside the Russian-American room of the Russian Cultural Center, in a tony Washington neighborhood, negotiators from the American and Russian governments this week sipped wine and nibbled on caviar after spending the day trying to live up to that charge—a quaint reminder of the former Cold War rivals’ warm relationship in the 1990s.


Despite tense relations that President Donald Trump has said may be at “an all-time low,” the small group of military and civilian officials exchanged closely held information that might help determine what happened to the thousands of U.S. and Russian military personnel lost in conflicts stretching from World War II to the Cold War and even the fate of a Russian pilot shot down over the Republic of Georgia in 2008. The so-called technical talks of the U.S.-Russian Joint Commission on POW/MIAs—the first since 2005—were the result of a surprising new level of Russian willingness to engage in recent months, according to the Americans.

They were also an eerie reflection of how far the relationship has fallen since 1999, when the cultural center was dedicated.

On the same day participants were discussing the missing crew of a U.S. spy plane that was shot down by the Soviet Union over the Pacific in 1951, a Russian fighter jet dangerously buzzed a U.S. reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea. A day earlier, Moscow threatened to target U.S. military aircraft over Syria. And Congress was moving deliberately to impose new sanctions on Russia. Yet those involved in the talks say they also hope to be an example of what is still possible at a time when the United States is accusing Russia of meddling in its electoral politics, their militaries face a growing risk of a confrontation and the two governments cooperate in exceedingly few areas.

“There is a huge lack of trust” at higher levels, said Tim Shea, the U.S. head of the so-called Cold War Working Group, as he mingled with other guests beneath paintings of Peter and Catherine the Great, referring to the heated rhetoric. “The last few days have been pretty serious. A lot of words have been exchanged. That is not the way to get things done. This is where we sit in a room and try to get things done.”

Shea, a retired Army colonel, said he felt compelled at the start of the talks this week to urge his colleagues on both sides to set aside the suspicions and focus on their common humanitarian work. “We don’t get political,” he said, “but I thought it was important.”

It was a message his Russian counterparts also tried to impart at events throughout the week, which included the Russian commissioners’ attendance for the first time at the annual meeting of the National League of POW/MIA Families, a leading advocacy group.

“We must remember, we are all human beings,” Maxim Alekseyev, a tall, urbane-looking Russian diplomat who is counselor at the embassy in Washington, where he manages the Russians' side of the effort, told those gathered at the reception.

The joint commission’s work has picked up steam as virtually everything else between the two sides has stalled, with the exceptions of joint work on space exploration and nuclear treaty inspections. “We like to say it is us and NASA,” remarked James Connell, a former Defense Department official who serves as executive secretary of the joint commission, which was first established in 1992 by then Presidents George H.W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin.

The American side asserts that more has been accomplished in the past year than in the previous decade, when much of the commission’s work was stalled.

“It’s had its ups and down,” retired Air Force Gen. Robert “Doc” Foglesong, who co-chairs the commission, told the National League gathering. The early years of the effort were very active, he said, but in 2006, the Russian government questioned its legitimacy — and some on the American side similarly questioned whether it was worth continuing. “There was a delay in a lot of the work we wanted to do.”

But for Foglesong, who has headed the commission for 11 years, there is a whole new spirit. “We’ve developed a better relationship with our counterparts than I have ever seen,” he reported, describing the closed-door discussions as “making progress every hour” and making “us feel like a band of brothers, all moving forward in the same direction.”

A major thrust of the effort is providing access to each other’s government archives. The U.S. side has had a team in Russia since the 1990s, seeking information from the files of the former KGB, GRU and other Soviet military and intelligence agencies that might help track down the missing. But it was only in 2015 that the Russians set up a similar team at their embassy in Washington to work with the Americans — and also to search for information on missing Russians in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.

A victory occurred earlier this year when the Pentagon, relying on critical assistance from the Russian side, recovered and identified the remains of 2nd Lt. John Mumford, a fighter pilot who crashed in Ukraine after he came under attack from German fighters in 1944. Munford was laid to rest in his native Florida.

“That came from our archive work,” said Army Col. Christopher Forbes, head of the Europe/Mediterranean directorate at the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the primary Pentagon unit tasked with the MIA recovery effort.

This week the Russian delegation also took a big step forward in helping the United States solve more of the mysteries surrounding the fate of 1,608 American military personnel still unaccounted for from the Vietnam War—in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Responding to a request that dates back well over a decade, the Russian team handed over a stack of recently declassified documents about the shoot-downs of 10 American aircraft over North Vietnam, then a Soviet ally.

“They gave us documents,” Forbes said, calling the gesture a “breakthrough,” especially because most of the Soviet files from the period remain classified. “They declassified them at our request.”

When the Russian commissioners were recognized at the opening session of the National League of POW/MIA families on Thursday, they received a standing ovation.

The Russians are looking for help, too. The Cold War Working Group’s talks focused on the estimated 242 soldiers listed as missing from the invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, when the United States armed rebels with anti-aircraft missiles and other weapons that took a heavy toll on Soviet forces. The Russian delegation was also asking the U.S. side to intercede with allies like Pakistan, which may have information about the fate of Russian prisoners from the conflict, officials said.

Of more recent interest is the fate of a missing Russian pilot from its 2008 conflict with Georgia, a former Soviet republic that is now seeking membership in NATO, the Western military alliance. “We are working with the Georgians to try to find answers,” said Forbes, who has traveled to Georgia as part of the effort. “We do have relationships with some of these countries.”

The strongest bond, however, remains the two nations’ alliance in World War II. Russia estimates it has 4 million soldiers unaccounted for from the conflict and the embassy showed a documentary about efforts in Russia to recover and identify bodies from the western forests.

“We understand the core and essence of this mission,” said Russian Col. Andrey Taranov, who came from Moscow to lead the Russian side and said his grandfather was listed as missing from World War II. “We are prepared to continue this work,” he added, pledging to obtain more information about American losses during Vietnam.

At sunset on Wednesday night, without fanfare or publicity but plenty of curious tourists—the Russian delegation laid a wreath at the World War II Memorial on the National Mall to mark the anniversary of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

At the cultural center, the Russian side unveiled a model of a statue depicting three airmen that the Russian government plans to donate to Elizabeth City, North Carolina, where Soviet pilots were trained at the start of World War II. And near the end of the talks, the Russians gave their American military counterparts T-shirts depicting the solidarity of soldiers from many nations. And several of the American and Russian negotiators could be seen joking with each other in the hotel where the talks were held.

“We have a lot of things in our history that belongs to the United States and Russia,” said Alekseyev, wearing a POW/MIA pin featuring both American and Russian flags. “This can be an example for future cooperation. The cooperation still exists despite all the turmoil and the rumors.”

Forbes, the U.S. Army colonel, agreed, calling this week “a shining example of how we can work together and do.”

Whether the new level of cooperation will survive—or, like so many other efforts, will be held prisoner to the two nations’ deep divides—remains to be seen. But Foglesong expressed confidence that the joint commission can remain “an effort not to be walked on by the political issues that may go on between our two nations.”

Said Taranov: “It is a noble mission.”