United States President Joe Biden expelled 10 Russian diplomats and sanctioned over three dozen companies and individuals in retaliation for its cyber-attacks and other aggressive behavior, the Associated Press reported Friday.
The sanctions aim to make it more difficult for Russia to participate in the global economy if it continued its campaign of hostile acts, including in cyberspace and on the Ukraine border.
The U.S. accused Russia of hacking the systems of at least nine federal agencies five months ago to gather highly classified U.S. information in the SolarWinds cyber-attack.
The latest U.S. sanctions follow a broader evaluation of Moscow's activities, ranging from its intervention in the 2020 U.S. presidential election to offering monetary rewards on U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan.
The measures are expected to escalate tensions with Russia, even as the Biden administration could have carried out even more retributive actions but opted not to in the interests of maintaining stability, the report said.
"I chose to be proportionate. The U.S. is not looking to kick off a cycle of escalation and conflict with Russia. We want a stable, predictable relationship," The New York Times quoted Biden as saying at the White House.
Biden described how he had warned Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin of what was coming during a phone conversation on Tuesday. Biden said he offered again to meet Putin in person this summer in Europe.
In Moscow, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said a response would be "inevitable," but she did not immediately disclose what it would entail.
