There appeared to be two separate messages coming out of the Kremlin on Friday, when Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that 31 American diplomats would be expelled as retaliation — and then Russian President Vladimir Putin announced no U.S. diplomats would be ousted. Lavrov’s announcement of a tit-for-tat expulsion — President Obama said on Thursday that 35 Russian diplomats would be expelled from the U.S. — is a common practice that goes back to the Cold War.