Trying to figure out how Sec/State Tillerson believes now that both US and Russia have slapped new sanctions and booted diplomats on each other that it’s a good starting point to improve relations?
Yep let’s piss each other off, shoot spitballs at each other from across the UN table, accuse the other of stealing milk money and shake hands at the end of the day – PB/TK
Russia Expels 755 U.S. Diplomats in Retaliation for Sanctions – By Daniel Politi / July 30 2017
Tensions between Washington and Moscow are bound to increase after President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that 755 U.S. diplomats will have to leave Russia by September 1. Moscow had already announced it would be expelling diplomats in retaliation for a measure approved by Congress earlier this week that expands sanctions against Russia, but Sunday marked the first official confirmation of how many of them would be forced to leave the country. Why 755? Russia wants the number of American diplomats in Russia to be the same as the number of Russian diplomats in the United States. Russia is also seizing two U.S. diplomatic properties.
Explaining the reasoning behind the retaliation during a television interview on Sunday, Putin said his government has gotten tired of waiting for relations with Washington to improve. “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,” Putin said. “I decided that it is time for us to show that we will not leave anything unanswered.”
Earlier on Sunday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the fresh sanctions against Russia amounted to the “last drop” and promised that Moscow would retaliate “in kind,” emphasizing the Kremlin had waited long enough. “I think retaliation is long, long overdue,” Ryabkov said on ABC’s This Week. “We have a very rich toolbox at our disposal.” Although President Donald Trump initially expressed opposition to the new sanctions, the White House said he will be signing the measure into law. Even if his administration dislikes the bill it was approved with only a handful of objections, meaning Congress could have easily overriden any veto. (“Evidently, about the only thing that has wide bipartisan support on Capitol Hill right now is the notion that Trump can’t be trusted to cut deals with the Russians,” noted Slate’s Joshua Keating on Friday.)
Continue to slate.com article: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/07/30/russia_expels_755_u_s_diplomats_in_retaliation_for_sanctions.html
