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Two rifts between Russia and the West
Summary
A look back at how Russia's NATO mission and an FBI raid on a sanctioned oligarch's home marked the days before 21 October 2021.
What was the state of relations between Russia and the West on 21 October 2021? Two reports from the preceding days gave a clear picture.
On 18 October 2021, Russia announced that it would suspend its mission to NATO in Brussels as early as 1 November. The decision followed the expulsion earlier that month of eight diplomats accused of espionage from the mission. Moscow also said that the NATO information bureau and the military liaison in Moscow would be terminated.
On 19 October 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that it had raided the Washington, D.C. house of Oleg Deripaska. He is a Russian oligarch and ally of Vladimir Putin, and the U.S. Treasury Department had sanctioned him in 2018.
One development concerned diplomatic channels with a military alliance; the other concerned a sanctioned businessman on American soil. Both were reported within a span of two days, shortly before the covered date.
