Russia responds to sanctions threat, orders USA to cut its diplomatic corps

Moscow has ordered the United States to slash the number of staff at its Russian embassy in response to further sanctions being mulled over in Washington amid a growing diplomatic rift between the two countries, Russia's Foreign Ministry announced Friday.

A package of punitive measures for Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 US election and for its military venture into eastern Ukraine and the Crimea has passed through both houses of the US Congress and awaits the final verdict from President Donald Trump.

The ministry told the US to cut its Russia-based staff from Sept. 1, and mirror Russia's diplomatic corps in the US: "This means that the total number of personnel involved in the American diplomatic and consular institutions in the Russian Federation is reduced to 455."

Any actions to further reduce the number of Russian diplomatic staff working in the US would be matched tit-for-tat, the statement said, adding: "We reserve the right on other mutual measures, which can affect US interests."

Russian officials also suspended the use of US embassy storage facilities in Moscow as well as a vacation house used by US staff.

Russia denounced what it termed an entrenched Russophobia in the decision-making circles of the US and said the pursuit of further sanctions against Moscow showed that bilateral relations had become hostage to internal political struggles in Washington.

"The US is stubbornly taking one crudely anti-Russian step after another, using the utterly fictitious pretext of Russian interference in its internal affairs," the ministry said.

Moscow's decision came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin described the US sanctions bill as "anti-Russian hysteria."

Russia maintains that the sanctions being drawn up against it are illegal and baseless but the West maintains its accusation that it interfered in the US vote and of destabilizing eastern Ukraine by supporting pro-Russian rebels in the civil war that erupted there in 2014 as Moscow moved to annex the Crimean Peninsula.

It remains to be seen whether Trump will give his backing to the proposed sanctions, which also include punitive measures against North Korea and Iran.

Members of Trump's inner circle have been dogged by claims that they colluded with Russians to gather information on the then-Republican candidate's Democrat Party opponent Hillary Clinton.

The current White House administration denies collusion.

Source: EFE