Putin says Russia will not expel US diplomats in tit-for-tat measure
President rejects dropping to ‘this level of irresponsible diplomacy’ in response to US move to kick out 35 Russian officials
Moscow will not engage in a tit-for-tat response to Washington’s decision to expel 35 Russian diplomats over allegations of interference in the US presidential election, Vladimir Putin has said, in a surprisingly calm reaction that appears to be designed as an overture to his incoming counterpart, Donald Trump.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said earlier on Friday he was recommending that Putin expel 35 US diplomats, but after a day in which numerous Russian political figures unleashed furious rhetoric in Washington’s direction, Putin intervened to announce that the Russian response would be to do nothing, at least for now.
The Russian president said his country’s ultimate response would depend on US attitudes to Russia under Trump, who has repeatedly spoken positively of the country and Putin. Moscow is accused of intervening in the election process in support of Trump.
“While we reserve the right to respond, we will not drop to this level of irresponsible diplomacy, and we will make further steps to help resurrect Russian-American relations based on the policies that the administration of Trump will pursue,” Putin said in a statement on the Kremlin’s website.
The statement also wished Obama, Trump and the US people a happy new year and invited “all the children of American diplomats accredited in Russia to the new year and Christmas tree in the Kremlin”.
The US move, announced on Thursday, involved the sanctioning of Russia’s GRU and FSB intelligence services, individuals and companies linked to them and the expulsion of diplomats the US believes had engaged in espionage. They were given 72 hours to leave the country.
Russia plans to send a special government plane to pick up the diplomats, according to state-controlled television. A diplomatic source earlier told Interfax that many of those affected were struggling to find tickets back to Russia as planes were full because of the holiday season.
Diplomatic expulsions are normally met with reciprocal action. In 2001, the George W Bush administrationexpelled 51 Russian diplomats it said were spies. Russia responded by telling 50 US diplomats to leave Russia.
“Reciprocity is the law in diplomacy and international relations,” Lavrov said before Putin’s intervention, recommending the expulsion of 31 diplomats from the US embassy in Moscow and four from the consulate in St Petersburg.
Lavrov also suggested that Russia would cut off the use of a warehouse building in Moscow and an embassy dacha on the outskirts of the capital in response to Washington’s moves to deny Russia access to two recreational compounds in the US.
Putin said this would not happen, at least over the new year period. “We are not going to make problems for American diplomats. We are not going to expel anyone. We are not going to forbid their families and children from using their usual relaxation places during the new year’s holidays,” he said.
US intelligence services believe Russia ordered cyber-attacks on the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton’s campaign and other political organisations, in an attempt to influence the election in favour of Trump.
Obama said Americans should “be alarmed by Russia’s actions”. Washington would take further measures, he added, “some of which will not be publicised”.
Overnight, the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova launched a stinging attack on the outgoing US administration. She wrote on Facebook: “The people who have spent eight years in the White House are not an administration. They are a group of foreign policy losers, embittered and shortsighted. Today, Obama officially proved this.”
Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the international affairs committee in the upper house of the Russian parliament, was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying the US action represented “the death throes of political corpses”.
The Twitter feed of the Russian embassy in London called the Obama administration “hapless” and attached a picture of a duck with the word “lame” emblazoned across it.
Trump will now have to decide how to calibrate his Russia policy when he enters the White House. He has previously praised Putin and dismissed reports of Russian interference in the election. On Thursday, he said: “It’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things.”
He added, however, that “in the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation”.
In a conference call with reporters, senior White House officials said the president-elect’s transition team had been informed of the sanctions before they were announced on Thursday. Trump and Obama spoke on Wednesday, they said. The officials added that the actions were a necessary response to “very disturbing Russian threats to US national security”.
“There has to be a cost and a consequence for what Russia has done,” a senior administration official said. “It is in a extraordinary step for them to interfere in the democratic process here in the United States of America. There needs to be a price for that.”
Timeline of protests and exclusions
Thursday’s expulsion is the latest in a long line of diplomatic incidents between Russia and the US since the turn of the millennium.
October 2016
Washington complains to Moscow after two US diplomats allegedly have their drinks spiked with date-rape drugs while attending a UN anti-corruption convention in St Petersburg.
July 2016
Two Russian officials are expelled in retaliation for what the State Department says was an attack on an US diplomat in Moscow by a Russian police officer. Washington says it is the latest incident in an escalating campaign of harassment against US embassy staff “in an effort to disrupt our diplomatic and consular operations”. Russia in turn expels two US citizens, including the man who was attacked.
January 2015
The US claims to have cracked a clandestine Russian spy ring based in New York. Two accused men, protected by diplomatic immunity, leave the US and a third is arrested.
March 2014
The US and other world leaders decide to exclude Russia from the G8 following its annexation of Crimea. The Russian foreign ministry says the country does not “see a great misfortune” in the expulsion.
May 2013
Russia expels a US embassy employee, Ryan Fogle, days after parading him on state TV claiming he was a CIA spy who had been trying to recruit a Russian counter-terrorism officer.
Days later, the FSB names a man it says is the CIA station chief in Moscow, in what appears to be a calculated snub to Washington, weeks after the two countries agreed to share intelligence over the Boston marathon bombers, who had roots in Russia’s north Caucasus region.
January 2013
An anonymous FSB officer reveals in May that four months earlier, in January 2013, Moscow had expelled a suspected spy working undercover at the US embassy.
June 2010
Ten people living in the north-eastern US are arrested and charged as “sleeper” spies, who had assumed deep-cover identities on long-term assignments for the Russian intelligence agencies. Among them is Anna Chapman, who gained British citizenship when she was married to a Briton. This was later revoked. All plead guilty to conspiracy and they are handed over to Russia in exchange for four alleged double-agents in a prisoner swap on the tarmac at Vienna airport.
March 2001
Washington expels 50 Russian diplomats following the arrest in a Virginia suburb of Robert Hanssen, an FBI intelligence officer accused and later convicted of acting as a double agent for Moscow for 15 years. Moscow retaliates by expelling a similar number of US citizens.
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