NEW YORK, (MILLAT+APP): US President-elect Donald Trump
on Friday lauded Russian President Vladimir Putin as “very
smart” for not retaliating against the U.S. for new American
sanctions unveiled this week.
“Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was
very smart!”, Trump tweeted Friday.
On Thursday, President Barack Obama ordered a series of
new sanctions against Russia as well as the expulsion of 35
Russian diplomats, accusing them of being spies.
However, Putin decided not to expel US diplomats in reprisal,
saying he would rather wait to work with the Trump administration
to solve the issue.
Trump’s tweet soon made the rounds on the internet and was
retweeted by the Russian Embassy in the US.
The new sanctions came in retaliation for what the White
House and the US intelligence community claim to be Russia’s
hacks of Democratic operatives and groups during the recent
presidential election.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has reportedly
determined in a secret assessment that the Kremlin interfered
in the November 8 election to particularly help Trump defeat
his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Russia and Trump have both denied the accusations, with
Putin saying that the US should either provide evidence or stop
the allegations.
On Thursday, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) provided technical details about the tools and cyber
infrastructure they said Russian civilian and military intelligence
services used for the hack attack, code named Grizzly Steppe.
The document said the cyber attack was carried out to
‘compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with
the US election, as well as a range of US government, political,
and private sector entities.’
However, it did not mention by name the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) and Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta,
whose emails were hacked and released during the campaign.
WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website that published the
emails, has made it clear that a whistle-blower inside the
DNC was behind the leaks and Russia had nothing to do
with them.
Obama’s move in slapping new sanctions on Russia was
hailed by Republican heavyweights like Senators Lindsey Graham
and John McCain. Trump, however, criticized the US claims and said
it was time to ‘move on.’