Russia to expel 150 Western diplomats

Nerve agent that poisoned Skripal was left on door, British government says

Russia yesterday responded quid pro quo to the wave of Western expulsions of Russian diplomats over the poisoning of an ex-spy and his daughter in Britain, while a hospital treating the pair said the woman is improving rapidly and is out of critical condition.

Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found unconscious and critically ill in the English city of Salisbury on March 4. British authorities blamed Russia for poisoning them with a military-grade nerve agent, accusations Russia has vehemently denied.

Two dozen countries, including the US, many EU nations and Nato, have ordered more than 150 Russian diplomats out this week in a show of solidarity with Britain.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a news conference yesterday that Moscow will expel the same number of diplomats from each of those countries in retaliation. Lavrov added that just as he was making the statement, US Ambassador Jon Huntsman was invited to the Foreign Ministry, where he was handed notice that Russia is responding quid pro quo to the US decision to order 60 Russian diplomats out. Lavrov said Moscow will also retaliate to the US decision to shut the Russian consulate in Seattle by closing the US consulate in St. Petersburg.

Intensifying Russia’s clash with Europe and the United States, the Kremlin yesterday announced it would expel 150 Western diplomats and close the US consulate in St Petersburg.

The action was in retaliation for the expulsion of more than 150 Russian officials from other countries — which was itself a reaction to a nerve-agent attack on British soil that Britain and its allies have blamed on Moscow.

The US ambassador to Russia, Jon M. Huntsman Jr., was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced. Sixty US diplomats will be expelled from Russia — the same as the number of Russian diplomats whom Washington is expelling. The Americans were given until April 5 to leave the country.

The crisis over the poisoning of a former Russian double agent and his daughter has driven tensions between the Kremlin and the West to their highest pitch in decades. The tit-for-tat responses raise the prospect of further, more serious escalations, either public or clandestine.

Relations were already rocky over Moscow’s roles in the wars in Syria and Ukraine, its annexation of Crimea, its meddling in elections in the United States and elsewhere, and the assassination of Kremlin foes in Russia and abroad.

Meeting called

Lavrov said Russia had called for a meeting next Tuesday of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to discuss the Skripal case.

Meanwhile, the British government said yesterday Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve toxin that had been left on the front door of their home in England.

“We believe the Skripals first came into contact with the nerve agent from their front door,” said Dean Haydon, Britain’s’ senior national coordinator for counter-terrorism policing. “Specialists have identified the highest concentration of the nerve agent, to date, as being on the front door of the address,” Scotland Yard said in a statement.

The Skripals were found unconscious in a busy shopping area in the small English city of Salisbury, where Sergei Skripal lives.