Britain expels 23 Russian diplomats over poisoning

Measures against Moscow announced

LONDON, March 14, (AP): Britain announced Wednesday it will expel almost two dozen Russian diplomats, sever high-level bilateral contacts with Moscow and take both open and covert action against Kremlin meddling after the poisoning of a former spy, plunging UKRussian relations into their deepest freeze since the Cold War.

Prime Minister Theresa May told lawmakers that 23 Russian diplomats who have been identified as undeclared intelligence officers have a week to leave the country.

May spoke after Moscow ignored a midnight deadline to explain how a nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union was used against Sergei and Yulia Skripal. The father and daughter remain in critical condition in a hospital in Salisbury, southwestern England, after being found unconscious on March 4.

May said Russia had provided no explanation, and “there is no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian state was culpable for the attempted murder of Mr. Skripal and his daughter.”

She announced a range of economic and diplomatic measures, including the suspension of high-level bilateral contacts with

May

Russia. An invitation for Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to visit Britain has been canceled, and May said British ministers and royals will not attend the soccer World Cup in Russia this summer.

May also said Britain would clamp down on murky Russian money and strengthen its powers to impose sanctions on abusers of human rights — though she gave few details.

“We will freeze Russian state assets wherever we have the evidence that they may be used to threaten the life or property of U.K. nationals or residents,” May said, promising to use all possible legal powers against criminals and corrupt elites.

“There is no place for these people — or their money — in our country,” she said.

The Russian embassy in London said the expulsion of diplomats was “totally unacceptable, unjustified and shortsighted.”

“All the responsibility for the deterioration of the Russia-UK relationship lies with the current political leadership of Britain,” it said in a statement.

Russian ambassador Alexander Yakovenko, said Britain’s actions were “a provocation.”

Critics of the British government have long claimed that the UK is reluctant to act against Russia because London’s property market and financial sector are magnets for billions in Russian money.