U.S. President Donald Trump will sign legislation that imposes sanctions on Russia, the White House said on Friday, after Moscow ordered the United States to cut hundreds of diplomatic staff in retaliation for the measures and said it was seizing two U.S. diplomatic properties.
Moscow’s decision, which had echoes of the Cold War, was announced by the Foreign Ministry on Friday, a day after the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approved new sanctions on Russia.
The legislation was in part a response to conclusions by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and to further punish Russia for its annexation of Crimea in 2014.
WATCH: U.S. Senate backs Russia sanctions
Late on Friday, the White House issued a statement saying Trump would sign the bill after reviewing the final version. The statement made no reference to Russia’s retaliatory measures.
Russia had been threatening retaliation for weeks. Its response suggests it has set aside initial hopes of better ties with Washington under Trump, something the U.S. leader, before he was elected, had said he wanted to achieve.
Relations were already languishing at a post-Cold War low because of the allegations that Russian cyber interference in the election was intended to boost Trump‘s chances, something Moscow flatly denies. Trump has denied any collusion between his campaign and Russian officials.
The Russian Foreign Ministry complained of growing anti-Russian feeling in the United States, accusing “well-known circles” of seeking “open confrontation”.
President Vladimir Putin had warned on Thursday that Russia would have to retaliate against what he called boorish U.S. behaviour. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Friday that the Senate vote was the last straw.
A top White House aide said on Thursday that Trump might veto the bill in order to push for a tougher deal, an idea that drew skepticism in Congress because his administration had spent weeks lobbying for a weaker bill. Trump now has a 10-day window in which he can veto the bill, but the legislation is expected to garner enough support in both chambers to override any veto.
Congressional aides said they still had no indication of whether Trump would sign the bill or veto it.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by telephone that Russia was ready to normalise relations with the United States and to cooperate on major global issues.
Lavrov and Tillerson “agreed to maintain contact on a range of bilateral issues”, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The ministry said the United States had until Sept. 1 to reduce its diplomatic staff in Russia to 455 people, the number of Russian diplomats left in the United States after Washington expelled 35 Russians in December.
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