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What the April 2021 US sanctions on Russia meant
Summary
A retrospective on the US measures against Russia announced on 15 April 2021 and the diplomatic fallout that followed.
What was the state of play between Washington and Moscow on 19 April 2021? The days before that date had brought a sharp deterioration, and the consequences were still unfolding.
On 15 April 2021, the United States imposed retaliatory measures on Russia over the 2020 federal government data breach, interference in the 2020 US elections, and the occupation of and human rights abuses in Crimea. Washington banned trade in bonds newly issued by Russia's Central Bank, National Wealth Fund and Ministry of Finance. It formally named the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service as responsible for the data breach, blacklisted 32 Russian entities and individuals, and expelled ten Russian diplomats.
The grounds for the measures
The data breach was a cyberattack suspected to have been carried out by a group backed by the Russian government. As later described, it penetrated thousands of organisations worldwide, including multiple parts of the US federal government, and was reported to be among the worst cyber-espionage incidents the country had suffered. Affected organisations included NATO, the UK government, the European Parliament and Microsoft.
On elections, an assessment released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in March 2021 found that proxies of Russian intelligence had promoted misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about Joe Biden. Crimea was the third stated ground.
Moscow's response
Russia denied the allegations. Its Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the US ambassador and told him that a series of retaliatory measures would follow soon. A ministry spokesperson also said that a potential summit between the two countries' leaders might not take place.
The package therefore combined financial restrictions on Russian sovereign debt, a public attribution of the hacking and personnel expulsions. Moscow's reply put at risk a possible leaders' meeting.
A parallel concern in Kyiv
On the domestic side, Ukraine's health minister, Maksym Stepanov, had said on 13 April 2021 that the country had reached the peak of its third wave of coronavirus. Ukraine's attention was thus divided between the pandemic and the widening rift between the two powers.
By 19 April 2021, the sanctions, the denials and the warning of counter-measures defined the relationship. What Moscow would do next, and whether a summit would go ahead, remained open.
