31 July, 2017
Trump's approval of the bill came after Russia announced that it would scale down USA diplomatic staff in Russia to 455 people and seize a US warehouse and a recreational compound known as a "dacha" in Moscow in retaliation for Washington's anti-Russian actions.
"(The Russians) have taken Trump's measure and while they are willing to exploit his goofy fixation on Putin and naive sense you can do deals with someone like Putin. they realise his clownish performance as president makes it really hard for him to deliver on any of the big things that Russia wants", said Andrew Weiss, a former national security council Russia expert.
Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the measures were approved by the President.
Russian Federation has also threatened to resort to additional retaliatory measures in case of new moves by Washington to reduce its diplomatic corps.
Moscow "reserves the right to carry out other measures that could affect the interests of the USA", the statement added.
On July 14, Moscow warned that it was running out of patience in light of the stalemate that followed the closure of two Russian diplomatic compounds in the U.S., and mentioned possible retaliatory measures including the expulsion of diplomats. Access to the properties was closed for the Russian personnel.
The outgoing Obama administration seized two Russian diplomatic compounds - one in NY and another in Maryland - at the same time as it expelled the Russian diplomats in December.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was also seizing a Moscow dacha compound used by USA diplomats to relax from August 1 as well as a US diplomatic warehouse in Moscow.
The Russian Foreign Ministry strongly criticized the latest package of sanctions approved by United States lawmakers on Tuesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump will reportedly sign the legislation into law. In effect, he said, it's "almost final".
"Under the absolutely invented pretext of Russian interference in its domestic affairs, the United States is aggressively pushing forward, one after another, crude anti-Russian actions".
The US expulsion of Russian diplomats "clearly violates the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations and generally accepted diplomatic norms", it added.
Moscow complained that the new sanctions bill showed with all clarity that relations with Russian Federation have fallen hostage to the domestic political struggle in the US.
The spokesperson declined to comment on the current number of US diplomats and staff in Russia, but Russian wires cited "informed sources" saying hundreds of people would have to leave. U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Maria Olson could not immediately say how many people had to leave to meet Russia's new requirements. The ministry is also suspending the U.S. Embassy's use of two sites - a storage facility and a dacha on an island in the Moscow River.
