The difficulties with obtaining visas were threatened by Russians by former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, if Moscow insists on reducing the US diplomatic mission. The US State Department also promises to add problems to Russia.

If Moscow does not cancel its demand to reduce the number of employees of the American diplomatic mission in the country by 755 people, ordinary Russians will pay for this, McFaul warned..

"Russians should be prepared for the fact that they have to wait for visas in the US for weeks, and even months," he wrote on Twitter. However, in his opinion, this is a mistake, since in Russia the US has much less diplomats.

Meanwhile, in the Kremlin its calculations. "Thousands of employees - diplomats and technical workers - have worked, and still work in Russia. 755 will have to cease operations in the Russian Federation, "Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with Vladimir Solovyov. The head of state explained that Moscow took this step because Washington took an unprovoked step in the deterioration of Russian-American relations. This could not remain unanswered.

On the eve of Russia, the US demanded to reduce the number of diplomats on its territory, and also imposed a ban on the use of an embassy dacha in the Serebryany Bor and warehouses in Moscow. This became not only a mirror measure for similar actions by Washington in December last year, but also a reaction to the bill approved by Congress on anti-Russian sanctions.

However, the US administration considered Moscow's actions "disappointing". Such an "unjustifiable" measure "regrets" the State Department: "We assess the impact of such a reduction and how we will respond to it," the representative of the State Department told RIA Novosti, noting that official comments will follow later.

According to Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Federation Council, the staff of the American diplomatic mission is quite capable of forcing Russians to wait for a long time for visas, but this will be sabotage, since the remaining diplomatic staff is enough for the normal distribution of the workload: "Americans will have to work faster. Intentional sabotage will mean that they are unprofessional, unable to work under conditions of increased workload, "- says" Life ". Ru "of the senator's words.