Russia is to expel 23 British diplomats amid tensions over the nerve agent attack on a former spy and his daughter in the UK.<\/p>\n
The Russian foreign ministry said staff from the UK’s Moscow embassy would be expelled within a week.<\/p>\n
It also said it would close the British Council in Russia, which promotes cultural ties between the nations, and the British Consulate in St Petersburg.<\/p>\n
The move comes in response to Britain’s decision to expel 23 Russian diplomats.<\/p>\n
They were ordered to leave over the incident on 4 March which the UK government has blamed on Russia – but which Russia denies.<\/p>\n
Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia Skripal, 33, remain critically ill in hospital, after they were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury, Wiltshire.<\/p>\n
The UK government says they were poisoned with a nerve agent of a type developed by Russia called Novichok, and PM Theresa May has said she believes Moscow is “culpable”.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said it was “overwhelmingly likely” that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the nerve agent attack.<\/p>\n
Britain’s ambassador to Russia, Laurie Bristow, was summoned to Russia’s foreign ministry on Saturday and was handed Russia’s response to the UK’s sanctions.<\/p>\n
The foreign ministry, in a statement, said that the British diplomats would be “declared persona non grata”, adding that it “reserves the right to introduce other retaliatory measures in case of further unfriendly actions”.<\/p>\n
Mr Bristow, after leaving the meeting, said that the UK had no quarrel with the Russian people and would “always do what is necessary to defend ourselves”.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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