The Russian ambassador to the U.S. has been summoned to Moscow for consultations, a Russian foreign ministry spokesman said, as the Kremlin determines the next steps in relations with the U.S. under the Biden administration.
The announcement that Anatoly Antonov had been summoned to Moscow came a day after a U.S. intelligence report for the first time directly accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering a wide-ranging influence operation to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election, intending to hurt President Biden’s campaign.
U.S. intelligence agencies previously have said Moscow tried to interfere in the 2016 election and that it was doing so again last year but hadn’t explicitly linked Mr. Putin to allegations of 2020 meddling. Russian officials have repeatedly denied any effort to influence the outcome of U.S. elections.
A statement by the Russian foreign ministry said the most important thing for Moscow was to identify ways to rectify the relationship, blaming Washington for bringing relations between the two countries to “a blind alley.”
Mr. Antonov was appointed as Russia’s top envoy in Washington in August 2017. He was previously the deputy foreign minister responsible for military and political security. In a YouTube interview last month, he said that Russia wanted U.S. foreign policy to be more predictable.
