Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Russian diplomats expelled from US
BARACK Obama has struck back at Russia for allegedly hacking the US presidential campaign with a raft of punishments including the expulsion of 35 diplomats accused of spying.
The US said Russia must pay for its actions but Moscow dubbed the Obama administration “losers” and threatened retaliation.
A month after an election that the US said Russia tried to sway for Republican Donald Trump, Mr Obama took action against leading Russian intelligence agencies the GRU and FSB which were said to have been involved.
But the sanctions could be rolled back by president-elect Mr Trump, who has insisted that Mr Obama and the Democrats were merely attempting to delegitimise his election and urged the US to “move on”.
In an elaborately-coordinated response by at least five government agencies, the Obama administration also sought to expose Russia’s cyber tactics with a detailed technical report and hinted it might still launch a covert counter-attack.
“All Americans should be alarmed by Russia’s actions,” said Mr Obama. “Such activities have consequences.”
He said the response was not over and the US could take further, covert action — a thinly veiled reference to a counterstrike in cyber space America has been considering.
Mr Trump issued a statement saying it was “time for our country to move on to bigger and better things” but in the face of newly public evidence, he also suggested he was keeping an open mind.
“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,” he said.
As part of the punishment, the US kicked out 35 Russian diplomats who it said were actually intelligence operatives and shut down two Russian compounds, in New York and Maryland.
The US said those actions were in response to Russia’s harassment of American diplomats, calling it part of a pattern of aggression that included the cyber attacks on the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.
Russia, which denied the hacking allegations, called the penalties a clumsy, yet aggressive attempt to “harm RussianAmerican ties”.