MOSCOW – The Russian government has expelled ten US diplomats and threatened to crack down on US-funded non-governmental organizations in retaliation for sanctions the Biden government announced this week, Russia’s foreign minister said on Friday.
The State Department also made a proposal that the U.S. ambassador should return to Washington temporarily and he banned access to Russia by eight current and former U.S. officials, Secretary of State Sergey V. Lavrov.
The response, which mostly reflects the diplomatic reprimand by the United States in the past, suggested that the Russian government does not intend to make an escalation that could already exacerbate the gloomy relations between the countries. These relations have weakened to a large extent over Russian cyber attacks and interference in American elections.
President Biden has indicated that the new American sanctions would point to a tougher line in the direction of Moscow, though it has left a door open for dialogue, after years of postponing treatment under the Trump administration. Mr. Lavrov called the sanctions an “absolutely unfriendly and unresolved action”.
But because Russia’s response has been largely limited to the expulsions and travel bans, it appears that the Kremlin does not intend to raise diplomatic interest and can remain open to the invitation to a summit, possibly this summer, which Mr. President Vladimir V. Putin this week.
The Biden administration has suspended 10 diplomats from the Russian embassy in Washington and approved 32 entities and individuals for attempts to disinformation and Moscow’s interference in the 2020 presidential election. Some of the US measures are aimed at making it more difficult for Russia to participate in the world economy if the country continues with its harmful actions.
“I chose to be proportionate,” he said. Biden said in the White House on Thursday and described how he met Mr. Putin warned about what would come in a phone call on Tuesday. “The United States does not want to start a cycle of escalation and conflict with Russia. We want a stable, predictable relationship, ‘he said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that US officials had been banned from entering the country, including the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christopher Wray; the director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines; Attorney General Merrick Garland; and Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. Others facing an access ban include the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Michael Carvajal; the director of domestic policy, Susan Rice; a former national security adviser, John Bolton; and a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, James Woolsey.
Along with the evictions, the foreign ministry said it would close non-governmental groups backed by the foreign ministry if it interfered in Russia’s domestic politics but did not specify which organizations could be excluded.
Also on Friday, US Ambassador to Russia John J. Sullivan was summoned to a meeting with senior Kremlin foreign policy official Yuri Ushakov and advised to return to the United States for consultations.
It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Sullivan would not leave. In the statement, his departure is presented as a proposal, not as a claim. “It is clear that in this situation of extreme tension, there is an objective need for both ambassadors to be in their capitals,” the statement said. Russia recalled its ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, on March 21.
Diplomatic expressions of anger between Russia and Western countries, well practiced in the seven years since Russia launched a military invasion of Ukraine, usually play out over a few days as choreographed exchanges of insults and expulsions.
“It seems that in Washington they do not want to make peace with the new geopolitical reality where there is no room for a unipolar dictatorship and the bankruptcy scenario to ‘contain Moscow’,” reads the statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry. It calls US policy towards Russia ‘nearsighted’.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov said earlier on Friday that the Russian government’s response should also be understood as ‘symmetrical’, suggesting it wants to prevent it from escalating.
The State Department gave a rare acknowledgment of the insignificant nature of the relationship, saying it did not immediately respond to the most important financial sanction the United States announced Thursday – a restriction on U.S. purchases of Russian government bonds . “We understand, of course, the limitation of our ability to reflect a ‘pressure’ on the US economy,” the ministry said.
Mr Lavrov said Russia could target US companies, which were vulnerable in one way or another, if the situation worsened.
In one respect, the Russian response goes beyond the measures imposed by Western governments on Thursday. Because Poland, according to the statement, was in a hurry to “sing” along with the US measures and expel three diplomats, the Russian government would expel five Polish diplomats in retaliation.