Washington imposes sanctions on Russian diplomats, Russia warns of retaliation

The measures, which target dozens of Russian entities and officials, aim to deter “Russia’s harmful foreign activities”, the White House said.

The statement says Russian intelligence was behind last year’s massive “SolarWinds” hack, and accuses Moscow of interference in the 2020 election.

Russia denies all the allegations and says it will respond in kind.

The sanctions announced on Thursday are detailed in an executive order signed by President Joe Biden. They come at a tense time for relations between the two countries.

In a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, Mr Biden vowed to defend US national interests “firmly”, while proposing a meeting with Mr Putin to find areas where the two countries could work together.

According to Thursday’s White House statement, the new sanctions show the US “will impose costs in a strategic and economically impactful manner on Russia” if it continues its “destabilizing international action”.

It reaffirms the administration’s view that the Russian government is behind cyber-attacks and has been trying to “undermine the conduct of free and fair democratic elections” in the US and allied nations.

It specifically blames the Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, for the SolarWinds attack, which gave cyber-criminals access to 18,000 government and private computer networks.

Last December then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he believed Russia was behind the SolarWinds attack.

Ten diplomats, including alleged spies, are being expelled from the US. The executive order also bars US financial institutions from purchasing rouble-denominated bonds from June.