 US President Barack Obama has "ordered a number of actions in response to the Russian government's aggressive harassment of US officials and cyber operations aimed at the US election" (AFP Photo/MANDEL NGAN) 
 
 Washington (AFP) - President Barack Obama on Thursday unleashed a barrage of retaliatory measures against Moscow for meddling in the US election, imposing sanctions on two intelligence agencies, expelling 35 agents and shuttering two Russian compounds inside the United States. “Such steps of the U.S. administration that has three weeks left to work are aimed at two things: to further harm Russian-American ties, which are at a low point as it is, as well as, obviously, deal a blow on the foreign policy plans of the incoming administration of the president-elect,” Dmitri S. Peskov, the spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, told reporters. Related Coverage Russians leave country retreats in the U.S., ordered out by Obama 
 
 Trump has brushed aside allegations from the CIA and other intelligence agencies that Russia was behind the cyber attacks.” It’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things,” Trump said on Thursday, though he said he would meet with intelligence officials next week. US intelligence had concluded that a hack-and-release of Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton staff emails was ordered by the Kremlin and was designed to put the Republican real estate mogul in the Oval Office. "I have ordered a number of actions in response to the Russian government's aggressive harassment of US officials and cyber operations aimed at the US election," Obama said in a statement. A senior U.S. official on Thursday said that Trump could reverse Obama’s executive order, but doing so would be inadvisable. A total of 96 Russians are expected to leave the United States including expelled diplomats and their families. As part of the sanctions, Obama told Russia to close two compounds in the United States that the administration said were used by Russian personnel for “intelligence-related purposes.” 
 
 Convoys of trucks, buses and black sedans with diplomatic license plates left the countryside vacation retreats outside Washington and New York City without fanfare on Friday. The 35 Russian intelligence operatives -- based at the Russian embassy in Washington and the consulate in San Francisco -- have been declared "persona non grata" and ordered to leave the country within 72 hours. Washington also put sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies, the GRU and the FSB, four GRU officers and three companies that Obama said “provided material support to the GRU’s cyber operations.”
– In retaliation for Russia's election-influencing hacking, the Obama administration is kicking 35 Russian intelligence operatives out of the US, the New York Times reports. The operatives, who Reuters refers to as diplomats, are part of the Russian embassy in Washington DC and the Russian consulate in San Francisco. They'll have 72 hours to leave the country. The White House also placed new sanctions on Russia's FSB and GRU intelligence agencies, according to AFP. The agencies are believed to have been involved in hacking the Democratic National Committee and others. Finally, the administration is closing Russian compounds in Maryland and New York believed to be used for intelligence purposes. The Times calls it the "strongest American response ever taken to a state-sponsored cyberattack." Obama calls the response both "necessary and appropriate." "I have ordered a number of actions in response to the Russian government's aggressive harassment of US officials and cyber operations aimed at the US election," Obama said in a statement. The State Department says US officials in Moscow are regularly harassed by Russian security agents and traffic police; Thursday's actions are in response to that on top of election-related hacking. The move puts the onus on Donald Trump to lift the sanctions when he takes office, officially signalling that US intelligence agencies can't be trusted. When asked about the situation Wednesday, Trump said: "The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on."