Russian gov has quietly informed US embassy in Moscow it will remove the ban on employing Russian staff it announced with a lot of media coverage as a "reprisal" for expulsions of Russian diplomats in response to GRU activity on the ground and the Internet.
When US embassy said it will then only offer services to US citizens and suspends issuing visas to Russians, Kremlin quietly stepped back. Which kind of shows that Russian bargain is quite weak in such international sabre rattling.
Because the second problem it has is that its economy is still largely based on exports of hydrocarbons. And because Kremlin couldn't resist from controlling and then weaponizing the exporters (as it did many times in 2000's), everyone started considering it to be a cheap but unreliable partner.
And this is not sustainable. This unsustainability results in lack of safety, which in turn results in obsession of control, both internal and external.
