Russia said on Friday, 14th, that there were too many US spies operating in Moscow with diplomatic protection and could expel some of them as a response to the expel of 35 Russian officials from US soil during President Barack Obama’s government.

President Obama, due to reports of alleged Kremlin interference in the US presidential election, ousted 35 Russian officials from the US and closed down two Russian locations in the country, which Obama said were used for espionage. Last week, US president Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin discussed the issue but failed to reach an agreement.

On the other side of the coin, Russia's Foreign Ministry said it would expel US diplomats and shut down US embassy activities on Russian soil if the Americans did not reopen the two Russian embassies in the US, whose activities were ended last year.

A spokeswoman for the ministry, Maria Zakharova, was very emphatic when she stated “we have a way of responding, the number of employees at the US embassy in Moscow exceeds the number of our embassy staff in Washington by a large margin. One of our options, aside from the expulsion of Americans, would be to match the numbers”.

If there is no change in the framework of the US-Russia dispute soon, she said that Moscow will have to retaliate reluctantly and hinted that US spies would be among those expelled. This could cause another sparkle to the existing tension between the two giants, especially following the overthrow of a Syrian military craft by the United States last month and the threats from Russia that succeeded the event.