UK kicks out 23 Russian ‘spies’ as poisoning row grows

LONDON: Britain gave 23 Russian diplomats it believes are intelligence officers a week to leave the country on Wednesday as relations between the two countries plunged to a level not seen since the Cold War.

“This will be the single biggest expulsion for over 30 years,” Prime Minister Theresa May told the House of Commons, and it would “fundamentally degrade Russian intelligence capability in the UK for years to come.”

She spoke after Moscow ignored a midnight deadline to explain how the nerve agent Novichok, developed by the Soviet Union, was used against Sergei Skripal, an exRussian agent convicted of spying for Britain, and his daughter Yulia. They remain in critical condition in a hospital in Salisbury, southwestern England, after being found unconscious March 4.

May said there was “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 highlevel contacts with Russia. An invitation for Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to visit Britain has been canceled, and British ministers and royals will not attend the football 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.

“We will freeze Russian state assets wherever we have the evidence that they may be used to threaten the life or property of UK nationals or residents,” she said.

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

Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko called Britain’s actions were “a provocation.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry said: “Our response will not be long in coming.” It said Britain’s “hostile measures” were “an unprecedentedly crude provocation.”