BREAKING : Russia Hints They May Expel 35 U.S. Diplomats in Retaliation to Obama’s Order

On Thursday Obama supposedly “retaliated” for a Russian hacking plot to “overtake our election” and help Trump win by booting out 35 Russians diplomats and imposing sanctions on Russia.

Mind you; there’s been no proof of this shown to the American people – just a lot of paranoid rhetoric, political posturing, and fake news on the matter.

Now, Russia is suggesting they too may boot 35 U.S. diplomats from their country in retaliation to Obama’s order.

From Fox News:

Russia’s foreign minister Friday suggested expelling 35 American diplomats from Russia in retaliation against the U.S. over sanctions leveled against Moscow a day earlier.

Sergey Lavrov said in televised remarks Friday that the foreign ministry and other agencies have suggested that President Vladimir Putin order the expulsion of 31 employees of the U.S. embassy in Moscow and 4 diplomats from the U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg. Another suggestion is to bar U.S. diplomats from using their summer retreat on the outskirts of Moscow and a warehouse in the south of Moscow.

The threat came after U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday imposed sanctions on Russian officials and intelligence services over alleged Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election, as American political sites and email accounts were hacked. Thirty-five Russian diplomats were ordered to leave the U.S. in 72 hours and two facilities closed.

Russia has continued to deny accusations by the U.S. that it hacked and stole emails in order to help Trump win. Trump commented on the matter saying the U.S. should move on. Trump is planning on meeting with U.S. intelligence leaders next week to learn more.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow Thursday that the measures signal Obama’s “unpredictable” and “aggressive foreign policy.”

The spokesman added that Putin would order “appropriate” retaliation for the sanctions.

“We think that such steps by a U.S. administration that has three weeks left to work are aimed at two things: to further harm Russian-American ties, which are at a low point as it is, as well as, obviously, to deal a blow to the foreign policy plans of the incoming administration of the president-elect,” Peskov said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev charged Friday that Washington has become immersed in “anti-Russian death throes.”

It is regrettable that the Obama administration, which started out by restoring our ties, is ending its term in an anti-Russia agony. RIP

— Dmitry Medvedev (@MedvedevRussiaE) December 30, 2016

Medvedev, who focused on improving U.S.-Russia ties when he was president from 2008-2012, called the latest diplomatic breach “sad” in a Twitter post.

Thursday’s sanctions are the strongest action the Obama administration has taken to date to retaliate for a cyberattack, and more comprehensive than last year’s sanctions on North Korea after it hacked Sony Pictures Entertainment. The new penalties add to existing U.S. sanctions over Russia’s actions in Ukraine, which have impaired Russia’s economy but had limited impact on Putin’s behavior.

U.S. relations with Russia have suffered during Obama’s years in office as he and Putin tussled over Ukraine, Edward Snowden and Russia’s support for Syrian President Bashar Assad. Maria Zakharova, a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, took to Facebook to call the Obama administration “a group of foreign policy losers, angry and ignorant.”

It was unlikely the new sanctions, while symbolically significant, would have a major impact on Russian spy operations. The sanctions freeze any U.S. assets and block Americans from doing business with them. But Russian law bars the spy agencies from having assets in the U.S., and any activities they undertake would likely be covert and hard to identify.

“On its face, this is more than a slap on the wrists, but hardly an appropriate response to an unprecedented attack on our electoral system,” said Stewart Baker, a cybersecurity lawyer and former National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security official.

Amy Moreno is a Published Author, Pug Lover & Game of Thrones Nerd. You can follow her on Twitter here and Facebook here.

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