The building of U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Moscow Times
Shaun Walker, The Guardian: What will be the ramifications of Putin's order to reduce US embassy staff?
Russia’s surprise move is so severe that if it goes ahead it is likely to paralyse the work of US diplomats in Russia – depending on how the details shake out.
When it comes to diplomatic expulsions, Vladimir Putin likes to pull a surprise.
When the outgoing Barack Obama administration kicked out 35 Russian diplomats in December, the Russian president was widely expected to make a symmetrical response, but surprised everyone by doing nothing at all – apparently in the hope that relations would become rosier when Donald Trump took office.
Now, seven months later, the response has finally come, and Putin had another surprise up his sleeve: this time, the Russian move is so severe that if it goes ahead it is likely to paralyse the work of US diplomats in Russia.
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WNU Editor: There goes the support staff (i.e. cleaners, office gophers, the gardeners, chauffeurs, etc.).
In yet another round of games between Putin and Trump, this “retaliation” on the part of Russia is largely of the imaginary type. It began when AFP News Agency reported “755 US diplomats must leave Russia, President Putin announces” (link). That led Michael McFaul, the recent former United States Ambassador to Russia, to point out that “We dont have 755 American diplomats in Russia” (link) – and he would be in a position to know. So what’s really going on here?
ReplyDeletePutin clearly wants to put on a good show, creating the appearance that he’s retaliating against the U.S. sanctions bill in dramatic fashion. He appears to have picked the “755” number out of thin air, simply so he could make it sound like he’s uprooting a large number of Americans and cracking down harshly. While the media in the U.S. will end up exposing this as a drastically inflated number, it’s possible that the Russian media – which is largely controlled by Putin himself – will allow his false claim to stand. If so, the Russian people won’t know that he’s taking imaginary action. But there may be more to this where Putin and Trump are concerned.
Breaking news: trump just fire Anthony Scaramucci
ReplyDeleteThank you Benjamin. You were the first to give me a heads-up on this story. AP and Reuters only reported it a minute after I read your comment.
ReplyDeleteYou are very welcome glad i could help.
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