Russia

As promised (or threatened), the Obama administration has unveiled - via the US Treasury - new sanctions against Russia over election hacking allegations (that as yet have not been supported by any actual evidence). Despite president-elect Trump's comments that "we ought to get on with our lives," the sanctions apply to five entities and six individuals, and also including the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and closing two Russian compounds in New York and Maryland in response to a campaign of harassment against American diplomats in Moscow, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.

Authorities in Russia believe that Hillary Clinton was directly involved in orchestrating the assassination of Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov.  According to Russia, the former Secretary of State had a very compelling motive to order the murder in order to exact personal revenge on Vladimir Putin. Fort-russ.com reports: But let’s start with the other question: did Hillary Clinton have the capability of organize the murder of the Russian ambassador? Yes.

As noted previously, at some point today the White House is set to unveil new sanction, and other retaliatory "measures" against Russia and specifically the Kremlin, in retaliation for what according to a constantly repetitive narrative has been Russian hacking of the US election. Obama will do so by using a 2015 executive order that would allow the president to freeze the US assets of Russians overseas who have engaged in cyber acts, even though such order only applies to actions that have threatened U.S.

With the Obama administration set to unveil a fresh round of sanctions against Russia as soon as today, allegedly in retaliation for the Kremlin's "hacking" of the US elections, President-elect Trump had a few words of his own what he thinks the best steps for the US are: move on.

“I think we ought to get on with our lives,” Trump told reporters Wednesday night outside of Mar-A-Lago, his Florida resort, also casting doubt on the government's assessment that Russia hacked U.S. political organizations.

Yesterday we reported that, in what was the latest "PR fiasco" for the outgoing Obama administration, Turkey and Russia sat down, and appeared on the edge of hammering out a ceasefire plan for Syria between the two nations - something which the UN has been unable to achieve for years - in a deal which would not include the United States and be distinct from separate intermittent U.N.-brokered negotiations, which have so far failed to end the fighting in the proxy Syria war.