Russia to expel British diplomats in standoff over exspy poisoning
Says UK evicting its officials violates international law
MOSCOW Russia said on Friday that it will expel British diplomats and halt high-level meetings with the UK over the nerve agent attack on an ex-spy.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said to expect a Russian response “shortly” to Britain’s expulsion of Russian diplomats and accused Britain of violating international law and “common sense.”
Tensions are mounting since the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury earlier this month, in what Western powers see as the latest sign of increasingly aggressive Russian meddling abroad.
Accusing the Russian state of the nerve agent attack, Britain is expelling 23 Russian diplomats.
TO EXPAND BLACKLIST OF AMERICANS
Moscow will respond to a new set of US sanctions by expanding its “black list” of Americans, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Friday.
The US treasury slapped sanctions on 19 Russian citizens and five entities on Thursday in the most significant steps since Donald Trump took office. “From the very beginning, we use the principle of parity on the number of people included in sanction lists. So we will expand our ‘black list’ with another group of Americans,” Ryabkov said.
Moscow did not rule out extra measures in response to the sanctions for alleged interfering in US elections.