Putin expels 755 U.S. diplomats from Russia in response to sanctions

President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin
(Image credit: Saul Loeb/Getty Images)

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday announced 755 members of the U.S. diplomatic mission to Russia will be expelled from his country. This reduces the number of American diplomats in Russia from about 1,210 to 455, putting the American delegation on par with the Russian diplomatic contingent in the United States.

Putin's announcement comes in response to new sanctions against Russia overwhelmingly passed by both houses of Congress this past week. While President Trump initially lobbied against the sanctions package, he later supported it after some changes were made and it became clear his veto would be easily overridden.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.