Moscow lawmakers say retaliatory measures possible, accuse Obama of ‘unpredictable, aggressive’ foreign policy meant to hinder plans of incoming administration
The spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said Moscow regretted the new sanctions that the Obama administration imposed on Russia on Thursday amid allegations it interfered in the US presidential election, and was considering retaliatory steps.
Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday that the measures signal Obama’s “unpredictable” and “aggressive foreign policy.”
Peskov said “such steps of the US 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, deal a blow on the foreign policy plans of the incoming administration of the president-elect.”
Peskov said Putin has yet to study what the new sanctions involve and work out what retaliatory steps could be.
US President Barack Obama on Thursday imposed sanctions on Russian officials and intelligence services in retaliation for Russia’s hacking of American political sites and email accounts ahead of the November election.
Peskov on Thursday reiterated that Russia was not involved in the hacking. The measures included the explusion of 35 Russian officials, sanctions on intel agencies, and the closure of two compounds.
Vladimir Dzhabarov, a senior lawmaker in the Russian parliament told state-run news agency TASS that measures would be taken against US diplomats stationed in Russia.
“You realize, of course, reciprocal steps will be made and the U.S. embassy in Moscow and, quite possibly, the consulates will be cut down to size as well,” he said.
Also Thursday, the foreign affairs committee chairman of the Russian parliament’s upper chamber said Russia will see what President-elect Donald Trump has to say about the sanctions.
Konstantin Kosachev told the Interfax news agency that Russia “needs to consider the circumstances of the transition period and a possible reaction of the US president-elect.”
The move puts Trump — who has expressed open admiration for Russia and Putin, and who has dismissed the hacking allegations — in the position of having to decide whether to roll back the measures once in office.
Trump has yet to comment but Obama’s sanctions on Russia have garnered some support from the Republican leadership, with House Speaker Paul Ryan calling the measures “overdue” and “appropriate.”
Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham said the sanctions were “a small price” for Russia to pay for interfering with US elections. They said they’ll lead efforts in Congress to impose stronger sanctions.
McCain, of Arizona, and Graham, of South Carolina, called Russian cyberattacks on the 2016 election a “brazen attack on American democracy” and said retaliation measures announced by Obama were long overdue.
Obama said the hacking “could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government,” a contention the US has used to suggest Putin was personally involved.
Although the White House announced at the same time it was kicking out Russian officials and closing facilities, it said those were responses to other troubling Russian behavior: harassment of US diplomats by Russian personnel and police.
The 35 Russian diplomats being kicked out are intelligence operatives, Obama said. They were declared “persona non grata,” and they were given 72 hours to leave the country. The State Department declined to identify them.
Fyodor Lukyanov, the head of Council for Foreign and Defense Policies, an association of top Russian political experts, called the decision to expel 35 Russian diplomats “a Cold War-like diplomatic war.”
Lukyanov said on Rossiya 24 television that because of Thursday’s sanctions the Trump administration “will have to start off from an even lower point than it was” in trying to mend the US-Russia ties.
“I think the new administration will try to soften the blow and at least distance itself from, to show this has nothing to do with them,” he said.
The two compounds being closed down are recreational facilities owned by Russia’s government — one on the eastern short of Maryland and the other on Long Island, New York — that were also used for intelligence activities, the US said. The White House said Russia had been notified that Russia would be denied access to the sites starting noon Friday.
Russian officials have denied the Obama administration’s accusation that the highest levels of the Russian government were involved in trying to influence the U.S. presidential election. US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia’s goal was to help Trump win — an assessment Trump has dismissed as ridiculous.
Stewart Baker, former general counsel for the National Security Agency and former head of policy at the Homeland Security Department, said the administration’s public response to Russia’s hacking activities was “better than nothing” but “more symbolic than real.” He noted that Russia would likely retaliate with similar measures such as ejecting US diplomats.
“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,” Baker said.
As reported by The Times of Israel