SAN FRANCISCO, March 27, (THEWILL) – The Russian foreign ministry has vowed to retaliate against the expulsions of its diplomats by the United States, Canada, as well as 14 European Union countries over the poisoning of a former spy in Britain.
“We express a decisive protest over the decision taken by a number of EU and NATO countries to expel Russian diplomats,” the ministry said in a statement.
It described the moves as a “provocative gesture” promising that this “unfriendly step will not pass without trace and we will respond to it.”
This comes as 14 EU states announced that they are expelling Russian diplomats in a coordinated response to the nerve agent attack on a former spy in the English city of Salisbury, EU President Donald Tusk said Monday.
“As a direct follow-up to last week’s European Council decision to react to Russia within a common framework, already today 14 member states have decided to expel Russian diplomats,” Tusk told a news conference in Varna, Bulgaria.
“Additional measures including further expulsions are not to be excluded in the coming days and weeks.”
Also, the United States also announced it was expelling 60 diplomats and closing the Russian consulate in Seattle.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the move, part of globally coordinated retaliation against Moscow, was taken “in response to Russia’s use of a military-grade chemical weapon on the soil of the United Kingdom.”
Officials said that 48 “known intelligence officers” posted to the United States and 12 more at the Russian mission to the United Nations now have seven days to leave the country.
Trump has also ordered the closure of the consulate in Seattle, which officials said was the focus of spying efforts against the nearby Kitsap submarine base and Boeing.
Similarly, Canada has ordered the expulsion of four Russian diplomats and denied credentials for three others.
“We are taking these measures in solidarity with the United Kingdom,” Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said.
“The nerve agent attack in Salisbury, on the soil of Canada’s close partner and ally, is a despicable, heinous and reckless act, potentially endangering the lives of hundreds,” she said.
The four diplomats serving at either Russia’s embassy in Ottawa or its consulate in Montreal have been “identified as intelligence officers or individuals who have used their diplomatic status to undermine Canada’s security or interfere in our democracy.”
On March 4, former spy Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were found unconscious, slumped on a bench outside a shopping center in Salisbury.
Britain says a military-grade nerve agent from Russia was used to poison them.
