US President Donald Trump has not yet signed a bill toughening anti-Russian sanctions, but Russia has already reacted to it by taking away US diplomatic property - a dacha in Silver Bor and warehouses in Moscow. Why the answer turned out to be unsymmetrical and that it intends to demonstrate such actions by the environment of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian political scientist Andrei Piontkovsky told Apostrophe.

This is least like the Berlin or Caribbean crisis, because a rather strange reaction. Officially, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a statement on its website in which it called the measures adopted a reaction to the new law on sanctions. But, firstly, this law has not yet been adopted - this is the first such strange thing. And secondly, these measures are what we remember [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov threatened on December 29 last year - well, absolutely symmetrical measures in relation to what [US President Barack] Obama did with Russian dachas and Russian diplomats (Russian diplomatic residences in New York and Maryland were closed by Barack Obama's decree on sanctions against Russia for cyber attacks during the presidential elections in the US - Apostrophe).. And now suddenly it was remembered and reacted to those measures.

But it's funny to say that these dachas, some cellars, are a reaction to the law that lies on the table [of US President Donald] Trump and will be signed by him, because trying to veto is a political suicide for Trump.

This law is simply terrific in terms of the scale of sanctions. And not only stunning, but insulting to the entire Russian political elite. There are many sectoral measures in relation to the Russian economy, the deprivation of its loans, technologies. But the most scandalous part is an instruction to financial intelligence to present data on assets in the West for almost six months to virtually the entire political elite and the entire entourage of Putin. It seems to me that this very early reaction with the cellars and dachas is an attempt not to escalate the conflict, but, on the contrary, as if the signal: "We want to get out of this exchange of blows". This is my impression.

They understand that nobody will stop the sanctions. I do not know whether Ukraine paid attention to such an event as the Security Conference in Aspen (Colorado, USA) last week. There were all the former administrators from Obamov and current leaders of law enforcement agencies. With sharp statements have spoken about Russia. I called this collective "Fulton speech of Churchill". It was the unanimous decision of the American military and political establishment to put the limit of this Russian hybrid aggression in all directions. And this law, passed by an unprecedented majority in the Congress in both chambers, reflects the position.

It seems to me that this now causes confusion and confusion in Moscow. I'm looking at the insane Russian shows in sufficient detail now: the participants of these shows closer to the Kremlin push the idea that at last we answered, answered very sensibly and did not go along the escalation path and so on. It seems to me that Moscow thought that out of this exchange of blows they had to somehow get out. There are no hints that something will be done additionally in the near future. And what can they do?.

Here they are talking about some sort of symmetry. What is the symmetry? All Russian leaders, starting with Putin, keep their billion-dollar assets in the West. But Americans do not keep their state in Sberbank or anywhere else. Therefore, it is impossible to speak about any symmetry here. And this last law is very significant: it strikes at the most sensitive for the Russian elite. It's not just assets. This is the way of their life. This is the education of their children, their own medicine, the lives of wives, mistresses. These are serious, very serious changes in relations.

Yes, this is already a Russian bear caught in the Ukrainian trap - and can not move, and can not go back. In any case, with this Fuhrer. Today, my feeling is that this is an obvious desire of the majority of the top to get out of this conflict somehow. And how could it be otherwise, if all of them are now under the threat of freezing and confiscating their assets, not to mention public disclosure of all their conditions.

On the way out, they, in any case, thought about it.

Of course, there is also a bunker, of course, there are also some people who suggest a further escalation of the conflict. But this very instantaneous reaction to the bill and strange in two respects is the first thing that is announced that this is a reaction to the last law on sanctions, but in fact this is the answer that would have been natural on December 29, and the complete disparity in the scale of this Response to the scale of sanctions, which will actually be put into effect within 10 days. All this, in my opinion, testifies to the confusion in the Kremlin.