Trump to sign Russia sanctions

Moscow orders US to cut diplomats

WASHINGTON/MOSCOW, July 29, (Agencies): US President Donald Trump will sign legislation that imposes sanctions on Russia, the White House said on Friday, after Moscow ordered the United States to cut hundreds of diplomatic staff and said it would seize two US diplomatic properties in retaliation for the bill.

The US Senate had voted almost unanimously on Thursday to slap new sanctions on Russia, forcing Trump to choose between a tough position on Moscow and effectively dashing his stated hopes for warmer ties with the country or to veto the bill amid investigations in possible collusion between his campaign and Russia.

By signing the bill into law, Trump can not ease the sanctions against Russia unless he seeks congressional approval.

Moscow’s retaliation, announced by the Foreign Ministry on Friday, had echoes of the Cold War. If confirmed that Russia’s move would affect hundreds of staff at the US embassy, it would far outweigh the Obama administration’s expulsion of 35 Russians in December.

The legislation was in part a response to conclusions by US intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 US presidential election, and to further punish Russia for its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Late on Friday, the White House issued a statement saying Trump would sign the bill after reviewing the final version. The statement made no reference to Russia’s retaliatory measures.

Russia had been threatening retaliation for weeks. Its response suggests it has set aside initial hopes of better ties with Washington under Trump, something the US leader, before he was elected, had said he wanted to achieve.

Relations were already languishing at a post-Cold War low because of the allegations that Russian cyber interference in the election was intended to boost Trump’s chances, something Moscow flatly denies. Trump has denied any collusion between his campaign and Russian officials.

The Russian Foreign Ministry complained of growing anti-Russian feeling in the United States, accusing “wellknown circles” of seeking “open confrontation”.

President Vladimir Putin had warned on Thursday that Russia would have to retaliate against what he called boorish US behaviour. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Friday that the Senate vote was the last straw.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by telephone that Russia was ready to normalise relations with the United States and to cooperate on major global issues.

Lavrov and Tillerson “agreed to maintain contact on a range of bilateral issues”, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Diplomatic

The ministry said the United States had until Sept 1 to reduce its diplomatic staff in Russia to 455 people, the number of Russian diplomats left in the United States after Washington expelled 35 Russians in December.

It was not immediately clear how many US diplomats and other workers would be forced to leave either the country or their posts, but the Interfax news agency cited an informed source as saying “hundreds” of people would be affected.

A diplomatic source told Reuters that it would be for the United States to decide which posts to cut, whether occupied by US or Russian nationals.

An official at the US Embassy, who declined to be named because they were not allowed to speak to the media, said the Embassy employed around 1,100 diplomatic and support staff in Russia, including Russian and US citizens.

Earlier, US Ambassador John Tefft “expressed his strong disappointment and protest” at the development, a spokesperson at the embassy in Moscow told AFP.

The spokesperson declined to comment on the current number of US diplomats and staff in Russia, but Russian wires cited “informed sources” saying hundreds of people would have to leave.

The punishment announced by Moscow closely resembled punitive measures announced by then president Barack Obama in December. That was over an alleged Kremlin hacking and influence campaign to sway the 2016 US elections in favour of Trump.

Obama ordered out 35 Russian diplomats and closed down two embassy summer houses that Washington said were being used by Moscow to spy on the US. At the time, Putin made the surprise choice not to respond to the US move, saying that he was waiting to see how Trump handled the situation once he came to power.

Trump repeatedly insisted during his election campaign that he wanted to improve ties with Russia, sparking hope in the Kremlin for an improvement.

Moscow is already the subject of tough US sanctions over its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and support for a bloody insurgency in the country.

But allegations from the US intelligence community that Putin interfered in the US elections to get Trump elected have made any concessions to Trump politically toxic.

The White House had opposed the new sanctions package that curbs Trump’s ability to lift the punishment, but the near-total support in the US Senate and House put him in a major bind.

Even if Trump had decided to veto the bill, Congress could likely have mustered enough votes to override him.

Despite tensions over alleged Russian interference into the US election, Moscow and Washington have worked closer together on Syria.

The two countries thrashed out a ceasefire in the south of the war-torn nation despite being on opposing sides of the conflict.