Mirror Conflict Escalates... Russian Ambassador to the US Summoned and Returns Home

Anatoly Antonov, Russian Ambassador to the United States
[Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] Amid escalating diplomatic tensions between the United States and Russia, Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., who was ordered to return to his home country, arrived back on the 21st (local time), TASS news agency reported.

According to the report, the passenger plane on the New York-Moscow route carrying Ambassador Antonov arrived at Sheremetyevo International Airport north of Moscow that morning.

Earlier, the Russian Embassy in Washington posted on its official Facebook account that "Ambassador Antonov has set off for home to attend consultations regarding the revision of Russia-U.S. relations."

TASS reported that since the direct flight route between Washington DC and Moscow has been suspended due to COVID-19, Antonov departed from New York airport to Moscow.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on the 17th that Ambassador Antonov was ordered to return to his home country for consultations on U.S.-Russia bilateral relations. The announcement of recalling the Russian ambassador to the U.S. came immediately after the U.S. side raised allegations of Russian interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and warned of retaliation.

Earlier, on the 16th, CNN reported that the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) had prepared a report stating that the Russian government conducted operations during last year’s U.S. presidential election to help former President Donald Trump win and to defeat then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

The report estimated that Russian President Vladimir Putin was aware of these operations and may have directly ordered information operations to attack Biden in order to secure Trump’s victory, similar to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Regarding the contents of the DNI report, President Biden warned in an interview with U.S. ABC News on the 17th that Russia must pay the price for interfering in the U.S. election.

When asked by an ABC reporter whether he considers President Putin a "killer," Biden responded affirmatively, "Yes." This was interpreted as a statement based on Western claims that the Russian government was involved in the poisoning incident of Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny.

The Biden administration previously concluded on the 2nd of this month that the Russian government was behind the attempt to poison Navalny, announcing sanctions against seven senior Russian officials, five research institutes and security agencies, and 14 companies, with these sanctions taking effect from the 18th.

Just over two weeks after the U.S. announced sanctions related to the Navalny poisoning incident, it raised allegations of Russian interference in last year’s U.S. presidential election and warned of additional sanctions. In response, Russia took the strong measure of urgently recalling its ambassador to the U.S., sharply escalating diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.