by Rachael Bunyan at The Daily Mail
The US ambassador to Russia is to return back home for talks despite earlier refusing to leave Moscow in a row over President Joe Biden’s new sanctions on the Kremlin for interfering in the 2020 US presidential election.
Russia had ‘recommended’ that John Sullivan, the US Ambassador, temporarily leave the country amid soaring tensions.
Sources told Axios that Sullivan met with top foreign policy official, Yuri Ushakov, who advised that he go back to Washington, DC.
But Sullivan had reportedly refused the recommendation. According to the sources, Sullivan said if Russian President Vladimir Putin wants him to leave, then he’ll have to force him out.
However the US embassy in Moscow announced a U-turn today and said in a statement: ‘Ambassador Sullivan is returning to the United States for consultations.’
‘I believe it is important for me to speak directly with my new colleagues in the Biden administration in Washington about the current state of bilateral relations between the United States and Russia,’ the statement quoted Sullivan as saying.
‘Also, I have not seen my family in well over a year, and that is another important reason for me to return home for a visit.’
Sullivan said he would return to Moscow ‘in the coming weeks’, before any meeting between Biden and Putin. Moscow has said it is still studying the summit proposal.
The revelation comes just days after Russia responded to a barrage of new US sanctions by saying it would expel 10 US diplomats and take other retaliatory moves in a tense showdown with Washington.
The US ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan (pictured), is reportedly refusing to leave the country after he was told to return home just days after President Joe Biden’s new sanctions
Sources said Sullivan met with top foreign policy official, Yuri Ushakov, who advised that he go back to DC. But Sullivan has reportedly refused the recommendation to leave. Pictured is the US Embassy in Moscow, Russia
Mr Sullivan’s departure comes after Russia on Friday stopped short of asking him to leave the country, but said it ‘suggested’ that he follows the example of the Russian ambassador to Washington, who was recalled for consultations last month after Mr Biden’s description of President Vladimir Putin as a ‘killer’.
The Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday also published a list of eight current or former US officials barred from entering the country, including US Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also said Moscow will move to shut down those US nongovernment organizations that remain in Russia to end what he described as their meddling in Russia’s politics.
Russia will also deny the US Embassy the possibility of hiring personnel from Russia and third countries as support staff, limit visits by US diplomats serving short-term stints at the embassy, and tighten requirements for US diplomats’ travel in the country.
The others banned from entering Russia are Susan Rice, a former UN ambassador and now head of the Domestic Policy Council; John Bolton, who was a national security adviser under former President Donald Trump; James Woolsey, a former CIA director; and Michael Carvajal, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons…
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