Russian retaliation: Moscow will expel British diplomats

Britain expelled 23 diplomats after Russian Federation did not meet a deadline to explain the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a Soviet-made nerve agent.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any involvement in the killing.

On Friday, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said it was “overwhelmingly likely” that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the nerve agent attack.

May said the expulsion of the 23 diplomats, identified as undeclared intelligence officers, was the biggest single expulsion for over 30 years and would degrade Russian intelligence capabilities in Britain for years to come.

The UK’s deputy United Nations ambassador, Jonathan Allen, said that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons had been asked to examine the British analysis of the attack.

She said: ‘It’s very hard because now we have a different situation.

The ministry warned Britain that it “retains the right to take other answering measures” in response to any “further unfriendly actions”.

When asked by Sky News whether Russia had destroyed all its chemical weapons in line with the internationally recognised Chemical Weapons Convention, Russian diplomat Alexander Shulgin said: “Absolutely”.

High-level diplomatic rifts follow a predictable pattern, says Palmer, and this one is no different; everyone knew Russia’s move was coming, it was just a question of when.

On March 12, Prime Minister Theresa May claimed it was “highly likely” that Russian Federation was to blame, after Britain identified the substance as a type of nerve agent developed by the Soviet military.

But Mnuchin was unequivocal in saying that Thursday’s Treasury action “counters Russia’s continuing destabilizing activities, ranging from interference in the 2016 election to conducting destructive cyber-attacks”.

Britain’s government said the move was expected, and that it doesn’t change their conviction that Russian Federation was behind the poisoning of ex-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury.

A man takes the flag off the flagpole outside the consular section of Russia’s Embassy in London, Britain. Both have been hospitalized in critical condition in the United Kingdom since early this month.

The American leadership’s tone on the issue went through an abrupt change after a telephone conversation Tuesday night between Trump and the British prime minister, with the White House issuing a statement afterwards expressing solidarity with the U.K. According to a readout on the conversation from May’s office, “President Trump said the US was with the U.K. all the way”, as NPR reported. In December 2004, he was arrested by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and later tried, convicted of high treason, and imprisoned.

Russian Federation said Friday morning that it was expelling 23 British embassy staff from Moscow.

More: Who is Sergei Skripal? He was freed under a spy swap deal in 2010 and took refuge in Britain.

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Russian government hackers since at least March 2016 “have also targeted US government entities and multiple USA critical infrastructure sectors, including the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors”, a Treasury Department statement said. “Amazing, frankly”, Scaparrotti added.

“Why not poison Skripal and then afterwards use that to organise a boycott of the World Cup?”

A plaque at the entrance of the British Council office in Moscow.