The U.S. government blacklisted Russian companies, expelled Russian diplomats and barred U.S. banks from buying sovereign bonds from Russia's central bank, national wealth fund and Finance Ministry. The United States warned Russia that more penalties were possible but said it did not want to escalate.
 |
The Russian Foreign Ministry reacted angrily, summoning the U.S. ambassador for a diplomatic dressing-down to tell him "a series of retaliatory measures will follow soon." A ministry spokeswoman also said a possible summit could be imperiled.
Russia denies meddling in U.S. elections, orchestrating a cyber hack that used U.S. tech company SolarWinds Corp (SWI.N) to penetrate U.S. government networks and using a nerve agent to poison Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke on Tuesday to Russian President Vladimir Putin to raise concerns about those issues and the buildup of Russian forces in Crimea and along the border with Ukraine, although a top U.S. general saw only a “low-to-medium” risk of a Russian invasion in the next few weeks.
Biden, who also proposed a U.S.-Russian summit, is trying to strike a balance between deterring what Washington sees as hostile Russian behavior, while avoiding a deeper deterioration in U.S.-Russian ties and preserving some room for cooperation.
"My bottom line is this: There is an interest in the United States to work with Russia. We should and we will," Biden said in remarks to the press.
But "when Russia seeks to violate the interests of the United States, we will respond," he said. "I was clear with President Putin that we could have gone further, but I chose not to do so. I chose to be proportionate."
