Amid chill, Moscow urges U.S. to fix ties
But after booting staffers, Putin hints at other measures
MOSCOW — Amid a major diplomatic retaliation unseen since the Cold War era, Russia urged the United States on Monday to show the “political will” to repair ties.
President Vladimir Putin’s move to cut hundreds of U.S. diplomatic personnel in Russia underlines his readiness to raise the ante in the face of new sanctions approved by the U.S. Congress. The Russian leader warned that he has additional options that could hurt the U.S., but he voiced hope that he wouldn’t need to use them.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said it will take time for the U.S. to recover from what he called “political schizophrenia,” but he added that Russia wants constructive cooperation with Washington.
“We are interested in a steady development of our ties and are sorry to note that we are still far from that,” he said.
Peskov’s statement followed televised comments Sunday by Putin, who said the U.S. would have to cut 755 of its embassy and consular staff in Russia, a massive reduction he described as a response to new U.S. sanctions.
Vice President Mike Pence, on his first full day in Eastern Europe, offered a direct message to Russia, warning that the United States will not tolerate Russian force or intimidation toward its neighbors and reassuring the Baltic States that the U.S. supports them in the face of “the specter of aggression from your unpredictable neighbor to the east.”
“Under President Donald Trump, the United States of America rejects any attempt to use force, threats, intimidation, or malign influence in the Baltic states or against any of our treaty allies,” Pence said Monday morning, speaking alongside three Baltic leaders at the Estonian president’s office in Tallinn. “To be clear, we hope for better days, for better relations with Russia, but recent diplomatic action taken by Moscow will not deter the commitment of the United States of America to our security, the security of our allies, and the security of freedom loving nations around the world.”
Regarding NATO, Pence said “the United States stands firmly behind our Article 5 pledge of mutual defense — an attack on one of us is an attack on us all.”
The vice president’s remarks about Russia, at a joint news conference, offered a preview of the speech Pence delivered hours later outside the headquarters of the Estonian Defense Forces, in which he again offered a stern rebuke of Russia’s recent actions to undermine democratic nations, including the U.S.
The Russian Foreign Ministry first announced the cuts Friday, when it said that the U.S. should reduce its presence to 455 employees, the number that Russia has in the United States. It also declared the closing of a U.S. recreational retreat on the outskirts of Moscow and warehouse facilities.
Moscow’s action is the long-expected tit-for-tat response to former President Barack Obama’s move to expel 35 Russian diplomats and shut down two Russian recreational retreats in the U.S. following allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Putin had refrained from retaliating until now in the hope that President Donald Trump would follow on his campaign promises to improve ties with Moscow and roll back the steps taken by Obama.
The Russian leader hailed his first meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Germany last month, saying the talks offered a model for rebuilding relations.
But the congressional and FBI investigations into links between Trump’s campaign and Russia have weighed heavily on the White House, derailing Moscow’s hopes for an improvement in ties that worsened over the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and other disputes.
The overwhelming endorsement of a new package of stiff financial sanctions that passed Congress with veto-proof numbers last week dealt a new blow to Moscow’s aspirations. The White House said Trump will sign the package, and Putin decided to fire back without waiting for that to happen.
“We had hoped for quite a long time that the situation will somehow change, but apparently if it changes, it won’t be soon,” Putin said in remarks broadcast by state television late Sunday. “I thought it was the time for us to show that we’re not going to leave anything without an answer.”
The diplomatic personnel reductions are the harshest such move since 1986, when Moscow and Washington expelled dozens of diplomats.