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.
So what did USSR do? Of course, it interfered, and suppressed the reforms - in 1953, 1968, 1981, and then on much smaller scale in each country separately, as protests broke out literally every 5-10 years.
Not because that would somehow hurt its economy or "road to socialism", but out of the obsession of control, and "teach them a lesson".
Exactly the same thing happened again in Ukraine in 2014...
