(ZHE) — When Russia warned on Friday that it would retaliate proportionately after it announced it would seize two diplomatic compounds used by the US in Russia and added that it would reduce the number of US diplomatic service staff in the country to equal the number of Russian diplomats in the US by September 1, calculated by the local press at 455, it wasn’t joking.
Speaking in an interview on the Rossiya 1 TV channel, Vladimir Putin said that 755 American diplomats will be expelled, or as he phrased it “will have to leave Russia as a result of Washington’s own policies”, a move which Zero Hedge previewed on Friday, will make the diplomatic missions of Russia and the United States working in the both countries equal.
“The American side has made a move which, it is important to note, hasn’t been provoked by anything, to worsen Russian-US relations. [It includes] unlawful restrictions, attempts to influence other states of the world, including our allies, who are interested in developing and keeping relations with Russia,” Putin told channel host, Vladimir Solovyov, Sunday.
“The personnel of the US diplomatic missions in Russia will be cut by 755 people and will now equal the number of the Russian diplomatic personnel in the United States, 455 people on each side.”
Finally, the Russian president said that the time for retaliation has come: “we’ve been waiting for quite a long time that maybe something would change for the better, we had hopes that the situation would change. But it looks like, it’s not going to change in the near future… I decided that it is time for us to show that we will not leave anything unanswered.”
According to Reuters, Putin also said that Russia is able to impose additional measures against U.S. but he is against such moves.
And now we await the US retaliation in what is once again the same tit-for-tat escalation that marked the latter years of the Obama regime, as the US Military Industrial Complex breathes out a sigh of relief that for all the posturing by Trump, things between Russia and the US are back on autopilot.
By Tyler Durden / Republished with permission / Zero Hedge / Report a typo
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