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.
The only thing it did hurt were the feelings of the Russian elites who believed that their Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was an actual alternative to EU. And as usual, instead of just proving that simply by being economically successful and viable alternative, they chose to force the potential breakaway country into submission.
What followed was only a logical chain of consequences, with sanctions and counter-sanctions, and GRU operations in Sofia, Vrbetice, and sanctions for these.
