The new US sanctions against Russia are another manifestation of the unpredictable and aggressive foreign policy by the Obama administration, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin press-secretary, said.

“In our point of view such actions of the US current administration are a manifestation of an unpredictable and even aggressive foreign policy,” Peskov told the journalists.

“We regret the fact that this decision was taken by the US administration and President Obama personally,” he said.

“As it said before, we consider this decision and these sanctions unjustified and illegal under international law,” the presidential spokesman added.

The US restrictions won’t be left unanswered by Moscow, Peskov said, promising “adequate, reciprocal” reaction “that will deliver significant discomfort to the US side in the same areas.”

However, he added that “there’s no need to rush” with the countermeasures against Washington.

"Considering the current transition period in Washington, we still expect that we’ll be able to get rid of such clumsy actions… of behaving like a bull in a china shop, and that we’ll be able to make mutual joint steps to enter on the path of normalization of our bilateral relations," the spokesman said.

Earlier Thursday, Obama announced a set of countermeasures in response to what he called “the Russian government’s aggressive harassment of US officials and cyber operations aimed at the US election.” Obama has humiliated the American people by his decision, as it has complicated the political transition for the new US government, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Facebook page.

“Today America, the American people were humiliated by their own President. Not by international terrorists, not by enemy’s troops. This time Washington was slapped by own master, who has complicated the urgent tasks for the incoming team in the extreme,” Zakharova wrote.

She also promised “official statements, countermeasures and much more” to come from Moscow on Friday. Thirty-five Russian diplomats have been expelled from the US, with the president calling them “intelligence operatives” and also announcing the closure of two Russian compounds, in New York and Maryland.

According to Obama, nine Russian entities, including the GRU (Russian Military Intelligence) and the FSB (Federal Security Service), have been sanctioned. The Obama administration and the losing Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, have accused Moscow of being behind cyberattacks that targeted Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta, during their campaign.

They said that the whistleblower website WikiLeaks obtained the damaging hacked emails, which dashed Clinton’s chances to win, from Russian intelligence agencies. The claims were denied by both WikiLeaks and Moscow on numerous occasions, with Peskov earlier calling them “nonsense” in an interview with RT.