on charges the us government contends are unjust both the us and russian governments have previously expressed openness to discussions about potential prisoner swaps that could result in the americans release and biden has pledged to continue to raise their plight with putin diplomats the us and russia are in the midst of a yearslong tussle over staffing at diplomatic outposts in one anothers country but talks have been under way for months to ease tensions the us shuttered two russian compounds in 2016 in retaliation for russian election meddling and also expelled some russian diplomats on spying charges russia retaliated by shuttering us outposts and curtailing americas ability to hire local workers in moscow to staff its embassy the row escalated in recent months over visas for us diplomats in russia resulting in critical staffing issues an agreement to ease tensions could be reached as a deliverable from the call officials saidcybersecurity on monday one year since the disclosure of the massive solarwinds cyberespionage campaign traced to russia the security firm mandiant said hackers associated with russias svr foreign intelligence agency continued to steal data relevant to russian interests with great effect in their first inperson meeting in june biden pressed putin to crack down on malicious cyber actors and earlier this year sanctioned some companies and individuals associated with the effort the biden administration has tried to develop rules of the road for activity in cyberspace but there has been little progress on the matter since the june summit