Moscow - Russia told the United States on
Friday that some of its diplomats had to leave the country in
just over a month and said it was seizing some US diplomatic
property as retaliation for what it said were proposed illegal
US sanctions.
Russia's response, announced by the Foreign Ministry, came a
day after the US Senate voted to slap new sanctions on Russia,
putting President Donald Trump in a tough position by forcing
him to take a hard line on Moscow or veto the legislation and
anger his own Republican Party.
President Vladimir Putin had warned on Thursday that Russia
had so far exercised restraint, but would have to retaliate
against what he described as boorish and unreasonable US behaviour.
Relations between the two countries, already at a post-Cold
War low, have deteriorated even further after US intelligence
agencies accused Russia of trying to meddle in last year's US presidential election, something Moscow flatly denies.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday that the United
States had until September 1 to reduce its diplomatic staff in
Russia to 455 people, the same number of Russian diplomats it
said were left in the United States after Washington expelled 35
Russians in December.
It said in a statement that the decision by Congress to
impose new sanctions confirmed "the extreme aggression of the
United States in international affairs."
"Hiding behind its 'exceptionalism' the United States
arrogantly ignores the positions and interests of other
countries," said the ministry.
"Under the absolutely invented pretext of Russian
interference in their domestic affairs the United States is
aggressively pushing forward, one after another, crude
anti-Russian actions. This all runs counter to the principles of
international law."
It was not immediately clear how many U.S. diplomats and
other workers would be forced to leave the country.
An official at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, who declined to
be named because they were not allowed to speak to the media,
said there were around 1,100 US diplomatic staff in Russia.
That included Russian citizens and US citizens.
Most staff, including around 300 US citizens, work in the
main embassy in Moscow with others based in outlying consulates.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was also seizing a
Moscow dacha compound used by US diplomats to relax from August 1 as well as a US diplomatic warehouse in Moscow.
The outgoing Obama administration seized two Russian
diplomatic compounds - one in New York and another in Maryland -
at the same time as it expelled the Russian diplomats in
December.
The Russian Foreign Ministry warned it would respond in kind
if Washington decided to expel any Russian diplomats.