United States President-elect Donald Trump applauded the Russian President Vladimir Putin for not expelling American diplomats in response to President Barack Obama’s move to remove 35 Moscow staffers. “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart!” Trump tweeted on Saturday.
Putin was reportedly asked by the Russian Foreign Ministry to expel 35 American diplomats in response to Washington’s sanctions. However, the Russian President on Friday refused to resort to a tit-for-tat move. “Further steps towards the restoration of Russian-American relations will be built on the basis of the policy which the administration of President D. Trump will carry out,” Putin said in a statement according to Reuters. Trump will assume office on January 20.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, on Twitter, said, “It is regrettable that the Obama administration, which started out by restoring our ties, is ending its term in an anti-Russia agony.”
On Thursday, Obama had ordered the expulsion of suspected Russian spies over their involvment in hacking political groups in the US presidential elections. He also ordered sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies over the same charges.
A secret assessment of the breach carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency had earlier concluded that Russia had, indeed, been involved in trying to influence the elections to help Trump win. Putin has maintained that Russia had nothing to do with the hacking. In his TIME interview for Person of the Year 2016 issue, Trump said, “I don’t believe they [Russia] interfered.”
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