From Associated Press Reports
The spokesman for President Vladimir Putin says Moscow regrets the new sanctions that the Obama administration imposed on Russia on Thursday and is considering retaliatory steps.
Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday that the measures signal Obama’s “unpredictable” and “aggressive foreign policy.”
Peskov says “Such steps of the U.S. administration that has three weeks left to work are aimed at two things: to further harm Russian-American ties, which are at a low point as it is, as well as, obviously, deal a blow on the foreign policy plans of the incoming administration of the president-elect.”
President Barack Obama on Thursday imposed sanctions on Russian officials and intelligence services in retaliation for Russia’s hacking of American political sites and email accounts ahead of the November election. Peskov on Thursday reiterated that Russia was not involved in the hacking.
Peskov said Putin has yet to study what the new sanctions involve and work out what retaliatory steps could be.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Paul Ryan says the Obama administration’s new sanctions against Russia are long overdue after eight years of “failed policy” with Russia.
The Wisconsin Republican said in a statement Thursday that “Russia does not share America’s interests” and has consistently sought to undermine U.S. values while “sowing dangerous instability around the world.”
Ryan says the sanctions announced Thursday were overdue, but were “an appropriate way to end eight years of failed policy with Russia.”
He said Russia’s interference in U.S. elections showed the Obama administration’s “ineffective foreign policy that has left America weaker in the eyes of the world.”
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