Relations between the two former Cold War enemies continue to worsen today as the Trump administration announced that it would shutter the Russian consulate in San Francisco and on top of this, had asked the Russian administration to further reduce their diplomatic presence in other major US cities such as Washington and New York.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert: "The United States is prepared to take further action as necessary and as warranted."
We remind you that this is part of an ever increasing heightening bid of reductions of diplomatic personnel between the superpowers. In the beginning of August, the Kremlin announced its dissatisfaction with US sanctions against their country due to the continued occupation of Crimea in Ukraine. The next day, Russian officials stated in an official release that the US would be forced to reduce their diplomatic and consulate personnel by a whopping 755 people.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was in the Philippines at that moment, said in response to the announcement that the US would certainly be considering a retaliation. In his view, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov could expect a US response by September 1st.
The back and forth nature of this reducing of diplomatic staff has been escalating tensions between Russian and US government officials for more than a year now.
When asked by reporters whether this would be the last move, the US State Department spokeswoman stated: "The United States hopes that, having moved toward the Russian Federation's desire for parity, we can avoid further retaliatory actions by both sides."
The US-Russia relationship, which led to a three decade long cold war in the last century, had generally been better under Russian President Boris Yeltsin (1991–1999). Things changed in 1999 when NATO decided to bomb Yugoslavia, a former Russian protectorate. Ever since Vladimir Putin has risen to power as Russian President, the relationship has further deteriorated.
Democrats have for over a year now claimed that the Trump administration and Russia were best buddies. The opposite is proving true.
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