(Full statement)
28 December 201619:44
Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova on new threats of sanctions from the United States
2454-28-12-2016
The outgoing US administration has not given up on its hope of dealing one last blow to relations with Russia, which it has already destroyed. Using obviously inspired leaks in the US media, it is trying to threaten us again with expansion of anti-Russian sanctions, “diplomatic” measures and even subversion of our computer systems. Moreover, this final New Year’s “greeting” from Barack Obama’s team, which is already preparing to leave the White House, is being cynically presented as a response to some cyber-attacks from Moscow.
Frankly speaking, we are tired of lies about Russian hackers that continue to be spread in the United States from the very top. The Obama administration launched this misinformation half a year ago in a bid to play up to the required nominee at the November presidential election and, having failed to achieve the desired effect, has been trying to justify its failure by taking it out with a vengeance on Russian-US relations.
However, the truth about the White House-orchestrated provocation is bound to surface sooner or later. In fact, this is already happening. On December 8, US media quoted Georgia’s Secretary of State Brian Kemp as saying that the local authorities tracked down the origin of a hacker attack on his voter registration database after the election. The attack was traced to an IP address of the Department of Homeland Security. This was followed by an attempt to quickly cover up this information by a flood of new anti-Russian accusations that did not contain a single piece of evidence.
We can only add that if Washington takes new hostile steps, it will receive an answer. This applies to any actions against Russian diplomatic missions in the United States, which will immediately backfire at US diplomats in Russia. The Obama administration probably does not care at all about the future of bilateral relations, but history will hardly forgive it for this après-nous-le-deluge attitude.
Did I read somewhere that Putin’s response was to ‘tweet’ a picture of a duck with the word “lame” on it?
Concise, to the point, and factual.
I hate it when Ivan is right.
5.56mm
From the statement: “The Obama administration launched this misinformation half a year ago in a bid to play up to the required nominee at the November presidential election.”
The REQUIRED nominee. That’s funny!
She says in her statement that Russia will respond. Have they responded yet?
I wish they’d hack Ryan, McCain and Graham’s email and release it along with Bill and Hillary’s emails.