Obama ruined U.S.-Russia relations for Trump, says Russian official

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday blamed Barack Obama for the U.S. government’s order for Russian officials to vacate three diplomatic compounds in the states. Lavrov claimed the former president’s policies have led to the deterioration in U.S.-Russian relations and are preventing current U.S. president Donald Trump from making any “constructive proposals.”

Lavrov’s remarks come hours after the U.S. State Department announced its decision to oust officials from three Russian diplomatic compounds by Saturday. Russia will be forced to close its consulate in San Francisco as well as locations in Washington and New York that house trade missions. Lavrov said the closures would impact 35 Russian diplomats and their families.

The move is in direct retaliation for the Kremlin’s decision in July to cut the number of U.S. diplomatic staff working in Russia by 755, which State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert called “unwarranted and detrimental” in a teleconference with reporters Thursday. That decision itself was a retaliation to Congress approving new sanctions against Russia for meddling in the U.S. election last fall, adding to sanctions imposed under Obama for Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Lavrov was informed of the decision in a phone call with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Thursday, and he said the Kremlin was still “looking into it.”

“We will respond as soon as the assessment is complete,” Lavrov said Friday, according to state-run news agency Tass. “I would like to point out it was not us who initiated this exchange of sanctions but the Obama administration. They sought to rupture Russian-U.S. relations and prevent U.S. President Donald Trump from putting forward any constructive proposals.”

Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov criticized the State Department, telling reporters Friday that the closure of Russian compounds represented an “illegal seizure” that will harm relations even further. “The signal is not the one of development of relations, the signal is one of continuing to drown them,” Ushakov said.

Despite Lavrov blaming Obama, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters the decision to order the facilities closed was made by Trump.

Tillerson said he and Lavrov have agreed to meet later this month on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York to discuss the ongoing issues between the two countries.

During his election campaign, Trump had promised to reset U.S.-Russian relations, but the ongoing investigation into his campaign’s possible collusion with Moscow has significantly hampered any such efforts.