Russia to expel 10 diplomats
Retaliation comes after U.S. placed sanctions on nation
The Russian government will expel 10 American diplomats and threatened to crack down on U.s.-funded nongovernmental organizations in retaliation for sanctions announced this week by the Biden administration, Russia’s foreign minister said Friday.
The foreign ministry also offered what it called a suggestion that the American ambassador temporarily return to Washington and it banned entry into Russia by eight current and former U.S. officials, Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister, said.
The response, mostly mirroring the diplomatic rebuke by the U.S. from the day before, suggested the Russian government did not intend an escalation that could worsen already dismal relations between the countries. Those relations have frayed in good part over Russian cyberattacks and interference in American elections.
President Joe Biden had indicated that the new U.S. sanctions would signal a harder line toward Moscow, though he left a door open for dialogue, after years of deferential treatment under the Trump administration. Lavrov called the sanctions an “absolutely unfriendly and unprovoked action.”
But with the Russian response to them largely limited to the expulsions and travel bans, it appears the Kremlin does not intend to raise the diplomatic stakes and may remain open to the invitation to a summit meeting, possibly this summer, that Biden extended to President Vladimir Putin this week.
The Biden administration expelled 10 diplomats from the Russian Embassy in Washington and sanctioned 32 entities and individuals for disinformation efforts and carrying out Moscow’s interference in the 2020 presidential election. Some of the U.S. measures are aimed at making it harder for Russia to participate in the global economy if the country carries on with its harmful actions.
“I chose to be proportionate,” Biden said Thursday at the White House, describing how he had warned Putin of what was coming in a phone conversation on Tuesday. “The United States is not looking to kick off a cycle of escalation and conflict with Russia. We want a stable, predictable relationship,” he said.
In a statement late Friday afternoon, the State Department called the Kremlin’s expulsion of diplomats and sanctions against U.S. officials as “escalatory and regrettable.”
The statement defended the Biden administration’s actions this week against Russian officials and government entities as “proportionate and appropriate to Russia’s harmful activities.”
It added: “It is not in our interest to get into an escalatory cycle, but we reserve the right to respond to any Russian retaliation against the United States.”