Just minutes after Russia was given 2 days to implement today’s decision by the State Department, shuttering Russia’s consulate in San Francisco, California and two diplomatic annexes in Washington, DC and New York City, in “the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians”, the Russian responses started coming in, and they were not happy.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov was first on the tape, saying he “expressed regret about the escalation of tensions in bilateral ties”, noting “it wasn’t Russia that started the escalation.”