Is The US Going To War With Russia? Kremlin Criticizes New Sanctions, Expects Trump To Support NATO Enlargement

One month before President-elect Donald Trump takes office — and, if the Senate approves, appoints a man who has been recognized for his friendship with Moscow to secretary of state — the Kremlin wasn’t showing signs of optimism for the incoming administration.

“Almost every level of dialogue with the United States is frozen,” Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Russian government, told local media. “We don’t communicate with one another, or [if we do] we do so minimally.”

Peskov’s remarks followed President Barack Obama’s executive orders to extend U.S. sanctions against Moscow to seven additional individuals and eight entities Tuesday as part of Washington’s response to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, which the U.S. government does not recognize as legitimate.

The Kremlin spokesman, in addition to warning that the new sanctions would damage U.S.-Russia relations, said Moscow would “take commensurate measures” to respond, Reuters reported.

But on a more surprising note, Peskov also said he did not expect things to change with Trump in the White House. The Kremlin, he said, predicted the next administration would bolster attempts by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a major Western counterbalance to Russian hegemony in the East, to expand into Eastern Europe and supersede Moscow’s influence in the region — a phenomenon commonly referred to as NATO enlargement.

The comments may come as a surprise to critics of Trump’s approach to tension between NATO and Russia. In July, Trump informed the New York Times he did not plan to automatically assist recent NATO adherents in the Baltic Sea region if they faced threats from neighboring Russia unless “they fulfill their obligations to us.” His statement, the Times said, marked the first time a major candidate for president declared American assistance of its allies to be conditional.

Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Rex Tillerson, Trump's choice for secretary of state, has a history of voicing his opposition to the Obama administration’s 2 1/2 years of sanctions against Russia. Even prior to the Treasury Department’s imposition of the 2014 financial penalties, Tillerson was awarded Russia’s Order of Friendship medal in 2012.

It remains unclear how friendly Moscow will be with the rest of the incoming administration.