Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, in his last public remarks as President Trump’s national security adviser, strongly denounced Russia for its increased aggression around the world, and declared: “We have failed to impose sufficient costs.”

His comments come a little more than a week after he was ousted by Trump, who is replacing him with former U.N. ambassador and conservative firebrand John Bolton.

And they came hours after Trump, in a White House press conference with Baltic state leaders, stated “nobody has been tougher on Russia than I have.”

Despite a series of recent actions taken by the Trump administration against Russia over its alleged role in poisoning a former Russian spy in Britain, interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and global cyberattacks, Trump has been criticized by Russia policy experts and Democrats for refraining from forcefully condemning Moscow for such actions.

His outgoing national security adviser had no such qualms.

“Russia,” McMaster said, “has used old and new forms of aggression to undermine our open societies and the foundations of international peace and stability,” speaking Tuesday evening at the Atlantic Council.

“We are now engaged in a fundamental contest between our free and open societies and closed and repressive systems,” he said, alluding to Russia, among other countries. “Revisionist and repressive powers are attempting to undermine our values, our institutions and way of life.”

He spoke in the presence of the presidents of Estonia and Latvia and the foreign minister of Lithuania, who met with Trump at the White House earlier Tuesday. The summit was held to reinforce ties between the United States and the Baltic nations, and to celebrate the 100th anniversary of their independence following World War I.

[Trump names Bolton as his new national security adviser]

McMaster noted that “Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have all been targeted by Russia’s so-called hybrid warfare, a pernicious form of aggression that combines political, economic, informational and cyber assaults against sovereign nations.”

He lauded the Baltic states, which lie to the west of Russia, for their role in countering Moscow’s malicious acts.

He criticized Russia for employing strategies “deliberately designed to achieve objectives while falling below the target state’s threshold for military response.” Tactics include infiltrating social media, spreading propaganda and using other forms of subversion and espionage — all without rising to the level of an armed attack that would merit a military response.

For too long, McMaster said, “some nations have looked the other way in the face of these threats. Russia brazenly, and implausibly denies its actions, and we have failed to impose sufficient costs.”

Trump, for his part, was more restrained in his remarks about Russia.

“Ideally we want to get along with Russia,” he said at the press conference. “Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Maybe we will, maybe we won’t.”

With his unvarnished broadside against Moscow, McMaster becomes Trump’s second senior aide to leave the administration in a dramatic kiss-off with the Russian government.

Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson, in his final interview with reporters last month, gave the most critical assessment of the Russian government of his tenure, saying U.S. efforts to work constructively with Moscow only resulted in worse Russian behavior.

“I’ve become extremely concerned about Russia,” Tillerson told reporters following a trip to Africa. “We spent most of last year investing a lot into attempts to work together, to solve problems, to address differences. And quite frankly, after a year, we didn’t get very far. Instead what we’ve seen is a pivot on their part to be more aggressive. And this is very, very concerning to me.”

He added that “there seems to be a certain unleashing of activity that we don’t fully understand what the objective behind that is.”

Tillerson, too, was fired by Trump, who has nominated his CIA director, Mike Pompeo, to replace Tillerson.

Bolton takes over as national security adviser on Monday.

McMaster noted the measures taken by the Trump administration against Russia: the expulsion of 60 diplomats last week, calling out of the Russian government for malicious cyber intrusions that targeted U.S. critical infrastructure and increasing funding for the European Defense Initiative, which finances U.S. and allied military forces in Europe, to deter Russian aggression and prevent conflict.

[‘Tired of the wait game’: White House stabilizers gone, Trump calling his own shots]

But, he said, “we must recognize the need for all of us to do more to respond to and deter Russian aggression.”

He named four critical areas. For one, he said, the government must “reform and integrate” its military, political, economic, law enforcement and other instruments of power to counter Russia’s hybrid warfare.

The country must also invest in cyber infrastructure to protect data against espionage and attack, he said.

All countries must share responsibility to pay their fair share of the costs of security, he said. And “strategic confidence” must be preserved through a defense of the values of sovereignty, freedom and rule of law, he said.

McMaster’s remarks underscore the disconnect between the president, who frequently emphasizes the potential benefits of getting along with Russia, and his top advisers, whose skepticism of Russia follows traditional Republican orthodoxy.

The president’s top diplomat for Europe and Eurasia, West Mitchell, is a longtime Russia hawk, and his senior Russia advisers on the National Security Council, such as Fiona Hill, are also skeptical of the Kremlin.

The mixed messages are likely to continue beyond McMaster’s tenure as his successor, Bolton, continues to push for a harder line against Moscow, analysts say. Bolton, in a speech in February, called for a tougher posture toward Moscow, saying the United States must be more aggressive in responding to Russian meddling in foreign elections.

“I don’t think the response should be proportionate,” he said. “I think it should be very disproportionate.”

President Trump on Tuesday repeated his desire to quickly “get out” of Syria, even as his top commander for the Middle East outlined the need for an ongoing military presence there.

“A lot of very good military progress has been made over the last couple of years, but the hard part, I think, is in front of us,” said Gen. Joseph L. Votel, head of U.S. Central Command. Upcoming efforts, he said, include the military’s role in “stabilizing [Syria], consolidating gains” and “addressing long-term issues of reconstruction” after the defeat of the Islamic State.

The two spoke simultaneously in Washington. Votel, joined in remarks at the U.S. Institute of Peace by the administration’s top diplomatic envoy to the U.S.-led coalition against the militants and by the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, discussed the need to align military operations with those of diplomatic and aid activities on the ground.

Barely a mile away, Trump told a White House news conference that “I want to get out. I want to bring our troops back home.”

[Trump wants to get the U.S. out of Syria’s war, so he asked the Saudi king for $4 billion]

The United States, he said, had gotten “nothing out of $7 trillion [spent] in the Middle East over the last 17 years,” a calculation that apparently included the Afghanistan war against the Taliban in South Asia, where he last year approved a U.S. troop increase.

“So, it’s time. It’s time. We were very successful against ISIS,” Trump said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. “But sometimes it’s time to come back home, and we’re thinking about that very seriously, okay?”

Trump has used the $7 trillion figure many times, including during his campaign, although numerous experts put the figure at about half that, beginning in Afghanistan in 2001 and continuing through U.S. military operations in Pakistan, Iraq and Syria. The figure also would include substantial costs tied to veterans’ care and disability benefits, and war-related domestic and diplomatic security measures.

Many military officials were taken aback by Trump’s stated intent, first mentioned last week, to withdraw from Syria. In a speech ostensibly devoted to his domestic infrastructure plans, Trump told a rally in Ohio on Thursday that U.S. forces would “be coming out of Syria, like, very soon.”

In a lengthy January speech outlining administration policy in Syria, since-ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that “it is crucial to our national defense to maintain a military and diplomatic presence in Syria, to help bring an end to that conflict and assist the Syrian people as they chart a course to achieve a new political future.”

The speech, as of this week, has been removed from the active part of the State Department website, along with transcripts of all other speeches, remarks and travels by Tillerson during his tenure.

Votel, along with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, also has repeatedly said in recent months that U.S. troops would be staying in Syria for the foreseeable future to guarantee stability and a political resolution to the civil war, which initially created space for the Islamic State to advance.

There are about 2,000 U.S. troops there, advising and assisting local proxy forces and directing U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State forces. Trump described that mission as “close to 100 percent” accomplished, while Votel said that “well over 90 percent” of Syria had been “liberated” from the militants, even as “the situation continues to become more and more complex” and “other underlying challenges” become more apparent.

Among those challenges are the need to stabilize areas cleared of militants to prevent their reappearance, to forge a political solution that will end Syria’s civil war without ceding power to Russia and Iran, and resolving U.S. difficulties with neighboring Turkey.

According to State Department coalition envoy Brett McGurk, fighting against the Islamic State in Syria is ongoing in two areas close to the Iraqi border, one east of Shaddadi and the other in the far southeast at Bukamal. The latter has been the site of most recent U.S. airstrikes in Syria.

The effort against the remaining militants has been slowed on the ground, Votel acknowledged, by the departure of members of the principal U.S. proxy, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces. Many of the Syrian Kurdish fighters have left their U.S.-backed units in the southeast to head to Afrin in northwest Syria, where their compatriots are fighting against Turkey and its proxy, the rebel Free Syrian Army.

“What this means for us,” Votel said, “is that we’re going to have to look at the ways that we keep pressure on ISIS and continue to develop mechanisms on the ground that help us de-escalate the situation” in Afrin, “so that [it] can be addressed by discussion and diplomacy as opposed to fighting.”

U.S. diplomacy with NATO ally Turkey also is locked in a dispute over the town of Manbij, east of Afrin, near the Turkish-Syrian border. There, U.S. forces are protecting Kurdish allies from Turkish troops who say that the United States has reneged on its promise that it would not allow the Kurds to establish a presence. Turkey has labeled the Syrian Kurds as terrorists, allied with Turkey’s own Kurdish separatist movement.

Any significant exit of U.S. troops, according to military officials, would encourage both Turkey and the Russian- and Iranian-backed government forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iran to move into areas recently liberated from the Islamic State, extending both the civil war and Iranian influence in Syria.

[Putin ally said to be in touch with Kremlin, Assad before his mercenaries attacked U.S. troops]

Instead, Votel, McGurk and USAID Administrator Mark Green said Tuesday at the Institute of Peace, U.S. military and diplomatic and reconstruction efforts all need to work together in a joint push for stabilization in liberated regions.

Such joint efforts, Green said, are “more than just manifestations of our generosity. . . . They are key components of our national strategy.”

Trump, who last week froze $200 million in U.S. stabilization funds for Syria that Tillerson announced in January, has asked U.S. allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia, to pay for Syrian stabilization.

With the U.S. having “almost completed the task” of defeating the Islamic State, Trump said at Tuesday’s news conference, “we’ll be making a decision very quickly . . . as to what we’ll do. Saudi Arabia is very interested in our decision, and I said, ‘Well, you know, you want us to stay, maybe you’re going to have to pay.’ ”