31 July, 2017
The US Senate voted nearly unanimously for the crackdown earlier this week for the legislation which forces Mr Trump to seek approval from Congress if he wishes to ease the sanctions.
The White House has been sending mixed signals about whether President Trump would sign legislation to toughen sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea.
Russian state media quoted Putin saying 755 out of "a thousand or so" employees will "have to stop their activities in the Russian Federation".
Before President Barack Obama left office, he ordered the seizure of two Russian diplomatic compounds and expelled 35 of its diplomats in response to alleged election interference, a claim that Moscow has consistently denied.
Russia's response to the latest sanctions provides a fresh crisis for Trump, who upon his election appeared set to establish friendlier ties with Russian Federation but instead has presided over relations sinking to post-Cold War lows. The legislation specifies that President Trump can't ease the sanctions without congressional approval.
"We have no further comment at this time", a representative of the Department of State told RIA Novosti on Sunday. If the United States side decides to move towards further deterioration, we will answer, we will respond in kind.
1, USA staff will also be barred from using a recreational property on the bucolic island of Serebryany Bor, along with being barred from using warehouses on Moscow's Dorozhnaya Street. It is also unclear how the reductions would be split between United States and Russian staff.
That breakdown suggested the actual number of Americans forced to leave Russian Federation would be far less than 755.
The ministry announced in its statement it was also ousting USA embassy personnel from warehouses and cottages in Moscow starting in August.
The statement said the expulsion of Russian diplomats "clearly violates the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations and generally accepted diplomatic norms".
"If these cuts are real, Russians should expect to wait weeks if not months to get visas to come to U.S.", he said.
"I think this retaliation is long, long overdue".
It said Russian Federation has done its "utmost" to normalize bilateral relations and develop cooperation with the US on the important issues.
"We hope that there will be cooperation between our two countries on major global issues and these sanctions will no longer be necessary", Tillerson said in a statement. "But it appears that even if it changes someday it will not change soon", said Mr Putin.
He said Moscow and Washington were achieving results on cooperation, however, even "in this quite hard situation".
Trump's likelihood of supporting the measure is a remarkable concession that the president has yet to sell his party on his hopes for forging a warmer relationship with Moscow.
