Putin tells ‘loser’ Obama: I won’t stoop to your level
VLADIMIR Putin yesterday ruled out a Cold War-style tit-for-tat response to the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the US.
The Russian president claimed he would not ‘stoop’ to Barack Obama’s level by taking action over the US’s ‘irresponsible diplomacy’.
Instead, Mr Putin said he would work to restore ties with Washington after Donald Trump takes power next month.
Senior Kremlin officials criticised the US over the deportation of 35 diplomats, with one calling the Obama administration a ‘group of foreign policy losers, angry and shallow-brained’.
The White House had braced itself for reprisals after Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov recommended deporting 35 Moscow-based American diplomats.
However, Mr Putin said his response would depend on US attitudes to Russia under Mr Trump, who has in the past spofamilies ken positively of the country and its president.
He said: ‘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 RussianAmerican relations based on the policies that the administration of Trump will pursue.’
The statement even wished Mr Obama, Mr Trump and the American people a happy New Year.
He said: ‘We won’t be expelling anyone. We won’t be banning their and children from the places where they usually spend the New Year holidays.
‘Furthermore, I invite all children of American diplomats accredited in Russia to the New Year and Christmas tree in the Kremlin.’
Mr Obama invoked executive powers on Thursday to expel the Russian diplomats in retaliation for cyber-attacks allegedly aimed at influencing the US presidential election last month.
He said the hacking ‘could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government’, suggesting Mr Putin was personally involved.
The US government accused the diplomats of ‘acting in a manner inconsistent with their diplomatic status’ – a euphemism for spying – and gave them 72 hours to leave the country.
American officials also closed down the two Russian-owned estates suspected of being spying hubs for their agents. The Kremlin dispatched a plane to collect the diplomats and their families yesterday as a convoy of buses and cars snaked out of the estates.
Meanwhile the FBI issued a reward for information leading to the arrest of two suspected hackers. It offered $3million (£2.43million) for information relating to Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev, 33, and $100,000 (£81,000) for details on the whereabouts of Aleksey Alekseyevich Belan, 29.
Before Mr Putin’s intervention, foreign ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said: ‘[Mr Obama’s administration] are the group of foreign-policy losers, angry and shallow-brained. Today Obama has officially confessed to it.’
And pro-Putin Russian MP Irina Yarovaya said Mr Obama was seeking revenge on US voters who ‘discarded’ his ‘Russophobe’ policies.
She added: ‘By retiring with a scandal, you only demonstrate your bad manners and admit a total political defeat.’