MOSCOW (AP) – The crisis between Russia and the West over the poisoning of a former double agent in Britain heightened Friday as Russia ordered new cuts to the number of British envoys in the country.
Russia also summoned 23 foreign ambassadors to inform them that some of their diplomats would be expelled, a day after ordering 60 U.S. diplomats to leave and demanding that Washington’s consulate in St. Petersburg close on short notice.
The massive expulsion of diplomats on both sides has reached a scale unseen even at the height of the Cold War.
Two dozen countries, along with NATO, ordered out more than 150 Russian diplomats this week in a show of solidarity with Britain over the nerve-agent poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain that London blamed on Russia.
Moscow has vehemently denied involvement in the March 4 nerve agent attack in the English city of Salisbury and announced the expulsion of the same number of diplomats from each nation.