MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin on Friday ruled out any tit-for-tat expulsion of Americans after the United States decided to expel dozens of Russian diplomats over alleged interference in this year’s US presidential elections.

The Russian president’s decision came after the foreign ministry asked him to send home 35 US diplomats in retaliation for the expulsion of the same number of its staff by President Barack Obama on Thursday.

“We will not create problems for American diplomats. We will not expel anyone,” Mr Putin said in a statement, also inviting children of US diplomats to a holiday party at the Kremlin.

The move was a clear sign that Russia is pinning its hopes on US President-elect Donald Trump to help rebuild ties — which have plunged to their lowest point since the Cold War — when he takes office next month.

“We evaluate the new unfriendly steps by the outgoing US administration as a provocation aimed at further undermining Russian-American relations,” Mr Putin said.

He said Russia would plan its next steps “based on the policies pursued by the administration of president Donald Trump”, while warning that the Kremlin reserved the right to hit back.

Mr Putin ended his message by wishing both Mr Obama and Mr Trump a Happy New Year and separately congratulated the latter in his New Year’s message to heads of state around the world.

The US president had given the suspected “intelligence operatives” 72 hours to leave.

The Russian administration said it was sending a special plane to fly the diplomats and their families from the US, following reports that they were not able to purchase plane tickets on such short notice.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Russian news agencies that 96 people would be leaving the US, but declined to give details.

US intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government had ordered a hack-and-release of Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton campaign staff emails in a bid to put Republican Trump in the Oval Office.

Moscow has repeatedly denied the allegations and Mr Trump too has questioned them.

Our Correspondent in Washington adds: Mr Trump downplayed the Obama administration’s decision to expel the Russian officials and impose new sanctions on Russia.

In a statement released on Thursday evening, he said the country needed to “move on to bigger and better things”.

But he said that “in the interest of our country and its great people,” he would meet leaders of the US intelligence community next week to get an update about the facts of the situation.

Mr Trump had spoken to journalists on Wednesday night as well about reports of the then impending sanctions outside his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

“I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly,” he said. “The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I’m not sure we have the kind, the security we need.”

On Thursday, President Obama ordered the expulsion of the Russian diplomats and sanctioned Russian intelligence officials who he believes were involved in hacking American political sites during the elections.

The officials work at the Russian embassy in Washington and at its consulate in San Francisco.

President Obama also promised to take additional action and send a report to the Congress in the coming days about Russia’s efforts to interfere in the elections. The report will include details of alleged malicious cyber activity related to US election cycle on previous occasions.

“These actions are not the sum-total of our response to Russia’s aggressive activities. We will continue to take a variety of actions at a time and place of our choosing, some of which will not be publicised,” he said.

The measures mark a new low in US-Russia relations which have deteriorated over serious differences on Ukraine and Syria.

But it was not immediately clear if President-elect Trump would endorse the actions taken during the last days of Mr Obama’s presidency.

Mr Trump, who takes office on Jan 20, has repeatedly praised the Russian president and nominated people seen as friendly toward Moscow to senior administration posts.

President Obama also invited America’s “friends and allies around the world” to work together to oppose Russia’s efforts to undermine established international norms of behaviour, and to interfere with democratic governance.

Published in Dawn December 31st, 2016