This was a carefully stage-managed response from Mr Putin – dangling the possibility of tit-for-tat expulsions and then showing magnanimity in postponing any response – at least for now.

It is fundamentally a put-down for the Obama administration, suggesting that, in Moscow’s view, it is such a lame-duck, so irrelevant, as to make any response unnecessary.

It also poses an immediate test for President-elect Trump. Will he be convinced by the evidence the US intelligence agencies say they have? And, if so, what course will he steer in his relations with Russia?

This is no new Cold War. Russia is simply a kind of “pocket” superpower, nothing like the Soviet Union of old. But Mr Putin has shown here in relations with the West, as in Ukraine and Syria, that he can play a limited hand with great skill. Mr Trump will need to respond to this challenge in a decisive but graduated way.

‘Come to the tree’

In a statement on the Kremlin website (in Russian), Mr Putin said: “We won’t be expelling anyone.

“We won’t be banning their families and children from the places where they usually spend the New Year holidays. Furthermore, I invite all children of American diplomats accredited in Russia to the New Year and Christmas Tree in the Kremlin.”

He wished Barack Obama and his family a happy New Year, as well as Mr Trump and “the whole American people”.

In a message on the presidential website, Mr Putin said that, with the accession of Mr Trump, “the two states, acting in a constructive and pragmatic manner, can take real steps for restoration of mechanisms for bilateral co-operation”.

President-elect Trump has dismissed the hacking claims as “ridiculous” and said Americans should “get on with our lives” when asked previously about the possibility of sanctions.

However, he said late on Thursday he would meet US intelligence chiefs next week to be “updated on the facts of this situation”.

A little over a year ago, the Rev. Franklin Graham offered a Bible reading at President Donald Trump’s inauguration. He took the rain that fell that day as a sign of God’s blessing on the new president.

After Trump’s first tumultuous year in the White House, Graham is still firmly on the president’s side.

Graham, son of the famous evangelist Billy Graham and president of the international Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, appeared on Fox & Friends on Sunday to tout what he believes Trump accomplished during his first year.

Graham painted Trump as a defender of Christianity, someone who is standing up for Christians at a time when, the 65-year-old pastor said, the religion is being persecuted around the world.

“The world is attacking Christians because they hate the name of Christ. And President Trump has been defending Christians,” Graham said. “I find this refreshing to have a president who’s not afraid to say Jesus, he’s not afraid to have prayers where people end in the name of Jesus.”

“We’ve never had this, not in my lifetime, and he defends the Christian faith more than any president in my lifetime.“

While progressive Christian leaders and some leaders within evangelical Christianity are highly critical of Trump, Graham has long been a staunch supporter. He’s used his popular Facebook page to comment on the president’s actions and often, to defend Trump against attack.

On Sunday, Graham praised Trump for his tax plan, his approach toward ISIS, and the growth of the U.S. economy.

“Whether you’re an atheist, whether you’re a Catholic, whether you’re a Protestant, a Jew, it doesn’t matter. We all are benefiting from this man,” Graham said.

He also applauded the president for being able to work under intense scrutiny from the “left,” which Graham claimed is trying to force Trump out of office in a “digital coup d’état.”

Graham’s conservative religious views and his support of Trump have sparked criticism from some of his fellow Christians. He’s made inflammatory remarks about Islam, calling it an “very evil and wicked religion.” In a 2015 Facebook post, he proposed banning Muslims from immigrating to the U.S. Months later, Trump proposed his own ban. 

Graham also has defended Trump’s plans to drastically curb refugee admission to the U.S. Asked last year by HuffPost about reconciling Trump’s temporary ban on refugees with the Christian commandment to welcome, clothe and feed the stranger and to be a good Samaritan, Graham replied that he did’t see a conflict. 

“It’s not a biblical command for the country to let everyone in who wants to come, that’s not a Bible issue,” he said.

More than 500 prominent evangelical leaders disagreed with that interpretation of Christian charity and signed a letter denouncing Trump’s executive order on immigration. 

In addition, Graham holds deeply conservative Christian views on sexuality and often rails against the “sinful, destructive, anti-God agenda of the LGBTQ” on his Facebook page.

Before planned evangelical events in Canada and the U.K. last year, groups of Christian pastors publicly disavowed Graham’s “Trump style, hard line, hate filled” brand of Christianity.

In the interview with Fox and Friends, Graham said that he’s “grateful” for the president and finds Trump to be an “honest” person ― although not without flaws.

“He’s not president perfect, he’s got his flaws like we all do,” Graham said. “But he’s certainly trying to fix this nation so it will be better for my grandchildren and his grandchildren. So I say God bless the man and let’s move forward.”

This sentiment is understandable when events are viewed from the perspective of the average Russian. Though the end of the Soviet Union heralded the end of the Cold War tensions with the United States and its allies, for many it was the start of years of political and economic uncertainty, as well as a diminished place for the Russian people on the world stage.

Part of the regret may be from the chaotic manner in which the Soviet Union came to an end. The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, said in 2016 that the end of the union was due to “treachery.” Putin, formerly a KGB officer stationed in East Germany, called the breakdown of the USSR as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” in 2005, pointing to how many Russian citizens wound up outside of Russian territory due to the collapse.