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What the April 2021 US sanctions on Russia meant
Summary
A look back at the retaliatory measures Washington announced against Moscow in mid-April 2021, and the questions they raised for the region.
What was the state of play between Washington and Moscow on 19 April 2021? Four days earlier, on 15 April, the United States had announced a package of retaliatory measures against Russia, and the dispute was still unfolding.
What Washington did
The measures were a response to three issues: the 2020 United States federal government data breach, interference in the 2020 US elections, and the occupation of and human rights abuses in Crimea. The US 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 breach was later described as among the worst cyber-espionage incidents ever suffered by the US. It penetrated thousands of organisations worldwide, including multiple parts of the US federal government, and affected bodies such as NATO, the UK government and the European Parliament.
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.
Why Kyiv had reason to watch
Crimea was one of the three stated grounds for the American action, which placed the occupied peninsula in the same list as cyber-espionage and election interference. The background to the election strand also touched Ukraine. The New York Times reported in May 2021, after the covered date, that federal investigators in Brooklyn had opened a criminal investigation, late in the Trump administration, into possible efforts by several current and former Ukrainian officials to spread unsubstantiated corruption allegations about Joe Biden.
At home
Ukraine's own agenda that month was dominated by the pandemic. On 13 April the health minister, Maksym Stepanov, said the country had reached the peak of its third coronavirus wave.
On 19 April 2021, then, the open questions were how Moscow would carry out its promised retaliation and whether a leaders' summit would go ahead.
