Russian President Vladimir Putin will not counter the United States' decision to kick out 35 Russian diplomats over allegations of interference in the Presidential elections.

Russian Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov suggested earlier on Friday that he would recommend that Putin expel 35 American diplomats. However, Putin has seemingly decided to take no retaliatory action, in what some observers believe are overtures to the incoming US President Donald Trump.

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Putin said that Russia's final response would depend on the United States' attitude towards Russia once Trump moves into the White House.

"While we reserve the right to respond, we will not drop to this level of irresponsible diplomacy, we will make further steps to help resurrect Russian-American relations based on the policies that the administration of Trump will pursue," Putin said in a statement on the Kremlin's official website.

Putin also wished outgoing President Barack Obama, Trump, and the American people a happy new year. He also extended an invitation to the children of all the American diplomats based in Russia to the New Year celebration to be held at the Kremlin.

On Thursday, the US announced that it had placed sanctions on Russia's GRU and FSB intelligence services. The sanctions will extend to individuals and companies linked to them.

The expelled diplomats were given 72 hours to leave the country. According to state media, Russia will send a special government plane to the United States to pick up the diplomats.

Diplomatic expulsions usually get reciprocated. In 2001, then US President George W Bush expelled 51 Russian diplomats accused of being spies. Russia responded by expelling 50 US diplomats.

US intelligence services believe that Russia was behind the cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign. The cyberattacks are believed to have been an effort to help Trump win the presidential elections.

Tagsdonald trump, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama, Russia, US