Russia tells 60 from U.S. to clear out
St. Petersburg center shut; envoys given 2 days to pack
MOSCOW — Russia will close the U.S. Consulate in St. Petersburg and kick out 60 American diplomats in response to this week’s coordinated expulsion of Russian diplomats from the United States and a number of other countries, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday.
The move continues an ongoing escalation of tit for tat between Moscow and the West that began in early March with the poisoning of a former Russian double agent on British soil with a Soviet-designed nerve agent. American officials said Thursday that another round might be coming.
“We reserve the right to respond,” State Department spokesman Heather Nauert said in Washington. “Russia should not be acting like a victim,” she said, calling Moscow’s move “regrettable” and “unwarranted.”
Two dozen countries, including the U.S., many EU nations and NATO, have ordered more than 150 Russian diplomats out this week in a show of solidarity with Britain — an action unseen even at the height of the Cold War.
Moscow will expel the same number of diplomats from each of those countries in retaliation, Lavrov said at a news conference Thursday.
U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Thursday night, when Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov informed him of Russia’s response.
According to a Foreign Ministry statement, 58 American diplomats from the Moscow embassy and two from the consulate in Yekaterinburg have been declared persona non grata. The United States expelled 60 Russians on Monday.
The other American consulate in Russia, in Vladivostok, will not be affected.
U.S. officials have hinted at further moves, possibly against Russian assets abroad. Huntsman told the local RBC news outlet earlier Thursday that such a move was “possible.”
According to a Foreign
Russia’s move, in particular against the United States, “is a minor escalation,” said Alexander Gabuev, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center and a former foreign policy correspondent for Kommersant.
Ministry readout of Huntsman’s meeting with Ryabkov, the U.S. ambassador was rebuked for the remark and warned that such a move would have the “gravest consequences for global stability.”
In addition to the expulsion of Russian diplomats on Monday, the United States closed Russia’s consulate in Seattle — claiming it to be a hub of Russian intelligence activity and citing its proximity to a major American nuclear submarine base.
Russia’s action was “not unanticipated,” but the retaliation by Moscow “marks a further deterioration in the United States-Russia relationship,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
On March 14, British Prime Minister Theresa May had ordered the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats after Moscow rebuffed an earlier demand to explain how a Soviet-designed and Russian-produced nerve agent known as Novichok came to be used in Britain.
Last week, 10 of Britain’s allies, including the United States, agreed to coordinated expulsions of Russian diplomats, believed to be intelligence officers, from their respective countries. The movement grew this week to include 27 countries. A tally by The Associated Press put the total number of expelled Russian diplomats at more than 150. The number of expulsions in other nations was mostly in the single digits.
“All [measures] regarding the number of people who will have to leave the Russian Federation … will also be mirrored with respect to other countries,” Lavrov said. “This is the situation as of now.”
Analysts downplayed Russia’s move Thursday.
Russia’s move, in particular against the United States, “is a minor escalation,” said Alexander Gabuev, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center and a former foreign policy correspondent for Kommersant.
“Sixty diplomats is tit for tat, but shutting down the consulate in St. Petersburg is asymmetrical and escalatory — a mirror response would have been to shut down the Vladivostok consulate.”
Another analyst, Vladimir Frolov, disagreed that Russia had escalated.
“It was a matching response,” Frolov said, “I was expecting them to close two U.S. consulates.”
The St. Petersburg consulate has been given two days to pack up. All 60 of the American diplomats subject to the expulsion order have one week to leave.
RUSSIAN DENIALS
Russian officials from President Vladimir Putin on down have maintained that Moscow had nothing to do with the March 4 poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the British town of Salisbury.
Both Skripals remain hos- pitalized. British authorities said Thursday that Yulia Skripal, 33, was showing signs of recovery, while her father remained in serious but stable condition.
“She has responded well to treatment but continues to receive expert clinical care 24 hours a day,” said Dr. Christine Blanshard, medical director at Salisbury District Hospital.
A police officer who came in contact with the substance was also hospitalized but has since recovered.
Lavrov said Russia would seek consular access to the younger Skripal now that she has regained consciousness.
Sergei Skripal, a 66-yearold former Russian military intelligence officer, was imprisoned after he sold secrets to British intelligence. He was released in a 2010 spy swap and moved to Britain.
Speaking before Parliament on Monday, May said about 130 British citizens came into contact with the substance. May also said Russia has offered up 21 different arguments concerning the use of the Novichok agent.
Those arguments have ranged from denials that Novichok ever existed to accusing other former Soviet satellites of producing it. The only thread linking Russia’s series of denials is that Moscow had nothing to do with it, and that the accusations are little more than a provocation.
During a trip to Washington, Britain’s national security adviser, Mark Sedwill, told reporters that the attack was part of Russia’s “hybrid warfare” that operates below the level of armed conflict.
The coordinated expulsions of Russian intelligence officers, he said, were a “coherent approach by the Western alliance to a range of aggressive Russian behavior, of which the attack in Salisbury was just the latest, obviously very acute, example.”
Frolov said Moscow’s strategy going forward will likely focus on shouldering the blow from the current round of expulsions and pivot its attention to organizing a summit with President Donald Trump.
“Putin is hoping to use his charm,” Frolov said, “Just as he did with Bush in 2001. Putin needs to move quickly from here to there to score, but finds himself blocked by Theresa May.”
But it may take a considerable amount of charm to overcome this week’s moves.
“It is clear from the list provided to us,” Nauert said, “that the Russian Federation is not interested in dialogue on the issues that matter to our two countries.”
A prominent Russian lawmaker said Moscow’s expulsion of U.S. diplomats could aid the proposed meeting because both sides would be on an equal basis.
“It doesn’t create very happy circumstances around a prospective meeting, but this shouldn’t influence the meeting per se, the fact of it occurring,” Dmitry Novikov, deputy chairman of the foreign relations committee in the lower house of Russia’s parliament, told the Interfax news agency.
Elsewhere, worries about the escalation of Russia’s tensions with the West were on display at the United Nations, where Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters Thursday that he was reminded of the atmosphere that prevailed during the Cold War era. He called for the restoration of hotline-type communications between Moscow and Washington.