seems to improve the relationship between them. This, however, has changed somewhat following the imposition of sanctions against both Russia and Iran. Improving the countries’ respective ties with the US proved more difficult than forging closer ties between Moscow and Tehran. Since March 2014, In response to Russia's annexation of Crimea and the purposeful destabilization of Ukraine, the EU, the US, and a number of other Western nations have gradually adopted restrictive sanctions against Russia. In retaliation, Russia imposed its own restrictions on Western nations, prohibiting the import of some food items. In November 2018, the JCPOA-lifted Iran sanctions were entirely reinstated by the Trump administration. Polls According to 2015 data from Pew Research Center, 54% of Russians have a negative opinion of Iran, with 34% expressing a positive opinion. According to a 2013 BBC World Service poll, 86% of Russians view Iran's influence positively, with 10% expressing a negative view. A Gallup poll from the end of 2013 showed Iran ranked as sixth greatest threat to peace in the world according to Russian view (3%), after United States (54%), China (6%), Iraq (5%), and Syria (5%). According to a December 2018 survey by IranPoll, 63.8% of Iranians have a favorable view of Russia, with 34.5% expressing an unfavorable view. See also Non-Aligned Movement Russo-Persian Wars Russians in Iran Khomeini's letter to Mikhail Gorbachev Scheherazade List of ambassadors of Russia to Iran References Sources and further reading Atkin, Muriel. Russia and Iran 1780 - 1828 (U of Minnesota Press, 1980) Blake, Kristen. The U.S.-Soviet confrontation in Iran, 1945-1962: a case in the annals of the Cold War (University Press of America, 2009). Cronin, Stephanie. Iranian-Russian Encounters: Empires and Revolutions Since 1800. Routledge, 2013. . Deutschmann, Moritz. Iran and Russian Imperialism: The Ideal Anarchists, 1800-1914. Routledge, 2015. . Esfandiary, Dina, and Ariane Tabatabai, eds. Triple Axis: Iran's Relations with Russia and China (I. B. Tauris, 2018). 256 pages. Geranmayeh, Ellie. "The Newest Power Couple: Iran and Russia Band Together to Support Assad" World Policy Journal (2016) 33#4 pp 84–88. Kazemzadeh, Firuz, Russia and Britain in Persia, A study in Imperialism, (1968) online Raine, Fernande. "Stalin and the creation of the Azerbaijan democratic party in Iran, 1945." Cold war history 2.1 (2001): 1-38. Sefat Gol, Mansour, and Seyed Mehdi Hosseini Taghiabad. "From Attempts to Form a Coalition to Worsened Relations; Transformation in Iran and Russia Relations in the Seventeenth Century." Central Eurasia