IT WAS Vladimir Putin as we have come to know him: unpredictable, cynical and skilful at trumping real events with propaganda. On December 29th Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats involved in intelligence work (along with their families), ordered two Russian diplomatic compounds in America closed, and imposed fresh sanctions against Russian security agencies and a list of individuals. Mr Obama was retaliating for Russian interference in America's elections, which included hacking the computers of high-level Democratic Party officials and leaking the embarrassing contents to the press. The White House expected Russia to eject an equal number of American diplomats. Instead, Mr Putin responded asymmetrically, parrying the American action and mocking Mr Obama as a bitter loser.
Mr Putin's performance was carefully choreographed. In the first move Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, appeared on state television to declare that Russia would respond to America's actions in kind. The foreign ministry and other agencies, he said, had proposed to Mr Putin that 31 diplomats from the American embassy and four diplomats from the consulate in St...
The Economist: Europe