US bond ban on Russian issuers: the sanctions of April 2021
A look back at the measures Washington announced on 15 April 2021 and the response from Moscow.
What did the United States actually do to Russia's government finances in mid-April 2021, and how did Moscow respond? The measures were announced on 15 April 2021, and by 21 April 2021 they were the backdrop to a tense exchange between the two capitals.
According to reports from 15 April, Washington barred trade in bonds newly issued by Russia's Central Bank, National Wealth Fund and Ministry of Finance. It also formally named the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service as responsible for the 2020 United States federal government data breach, blacklisted 32 Russian entities and individuals, and expelled ten Russian diplomats.
The measures were presented as retaliation for three things: the data breach, interference in the 2020 United States elections, and the occupation of Crimea together with human rights abuses there. Russia denied the allegations.
Moscow's reaction
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the U.S. 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 underlying cases
The data breach was a cyberattack suspected to have been carried out by a group backed by the Russian government. It reached thousands of organisations worldwide, including multiple parts of the U.S. federal government. Within days of its discovery, at least 200 organisations around the world had been reported as affected, among them NATO, the U.K. government, the European Parliament and Microsoft.
On election interference, U.S. intelligence analysis released in March 2021 found that proxies of Russian intelligence had promoted misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about Joe Biden. Later, in May 2021, The New York Times reported on a separate criminal investigation by federal investigators in Brooklyn into possible efforts by several current and former Ukrainian officials to spread unsubstantiated corruption allegations about Mr Biden.
For the economy, the central element was the restriction on newly issued sovereign and central-bank debt, which placed Russia's state financial institutions directly within the scope of the American measures.
