UPDATE 2: Russian foreign ministry wants to expel 35 US officials

(Rewrites, adds details, comments throughout)

MOSCOW, Dec 30 (PRIME) – Russia should expel 31 U.S. diplomats of its embassy in Moscow and four officials of the consulate general in St. Petersburg in retaliation for new U.S. sanctions, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.

“The Russian Foreign Ministry, together with colleagues from other authorities, has submitted a proposal for consideration of the president of the Russian Federation to declare 31 officials of the U.S. embassy in Moscow and four diplomats of the consulate general in St. Petersburg non grata,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov called the U.S. accusations ungrounded and said that Russia will not leave the actions without response.

The State Duma, parliament’s lower chamber, will back Lavrov’s proposal, Leonid Slutsky, head of the committee for foreign relations, said.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called the new sanctions an “anti-Russian agony” of the Obama administration in his Twitter blog.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Mariya Zakharova was more explicit in her comment of the sanctions, calling the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama a bunch of losers in foreign policies in a Facebook post: “We have been saying this for several years in a row: the people who resided in the White House for eight years are not the administration, they are a bunch of losers in foreign policy, resentful and dimwitted. Obama has admitted this officially today.”

Washington slapped sanctions against nine Russian entities and officials over cyberattacks during the U.S. presidential elections and has declared 35 Russian diplomats non grata, ordering their expulsion until Sunday noon.

Obama said, “I have issued an executive order that provides additional authority for responding to certain cyber activity that seeks to interfere with or undermine our election processes and institutions, or those of our allies or partners.”

Obama said that the black list over the cyberattacks comprises Russia’s Chief Intelligence Directorate and the Federal Security Service, four officials of the services and three companies which provided support to the cyber-operations by Russian intelligence.

CNN reported that a shutdown of a school for children of U.S., U.K. and Canadian diplomats in Moscow was the first visible counteraction against the sanctions. The channel sources also said that Russia closed access to the U.S. ambassador residence on the Serebryany Bor Island.

But Zakharova denied information about the school, “This is a lie. The White House seems to have gone round the bend altogether and has started to fantasize about sanctions against its own children.”

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