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What did 19 October 2021 reveal about US-Russia friction?
Summary
A retrospective on an FBI raid and Russia's move against NATO, two reports that marked strained ties with Moscow.
What did 19 October 2021 show about the state of relations between Russia and the West? Two reports, one from that day and one from the day before, point in the same direction.
On 19 October 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that it had raided the Washington, D.C. house of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch and ally of Vladimir Putin. The U.S. Treasury Department had sanctioned him in 2018.
On 18 October 2021, Russia announced that it would suspend its mission to NATO in Brussels as early as 1 November. Moscow described the step as a response to the expulsion of eight diplomats from the mission earlier that month, who were accused of espionage. The NATO information bureau and the military liaison in Moscow were also to be terminated.
Two channels, two pressures
The two reports concern different instruments: a law-enforcement action against a sanctioned individual, and a diplomatic rupture between Russia and the alliance. Taken together, they show both Washington and Moscow taking firm steps within a single 48-hour span, while a standing channel of contact between Russia and NATO was set to close.
For Kyiv and its neighbours, the practical point was that a formal line of communication between Moscow and the alliance was due to disappear from 1 November.
