US, EU to expel more than 100 Russian diplomats over poisoning of former spy

London/Washington (Reuters): The United States said on Monday it would expel 60 Russian diplomats, joining governments across Europe in punishing the Kremlin for a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy in Britain that they have blamed on Moscow.

It was the strongest action that US President Donald Trump had taken against Russia since coming to office. He has been criticised by Democrats and members of his own Republican Party for failing to be tough enough on Russia over US allegations of Russian meddling in the US electoral system, including the 2016 presidential campaign.

British Prime Minister Theresa May, welcoming the show of solidarity, said 18 countries had announced plans to expel Russian officials. Those included 14 European Union countries. In total, 100 Russian diplomats were being removed, the biggest Western expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War.

Australia later confirmed it was expelling two Russian diplomats identified as undeclared intelligence officers, citing Russia’s “reckless and deliberate conduct.” New Zealand said it had no such agents operating on its shores but would expel them if it did.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Twitter Monday’s “extraordinary international response by our allies stands in history as the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers ever and will help defend our shared security.”

May said the coordinated measures sent the “strongest signal to Russia that it cannot continue to flout international law.”

Britain had evidence that Russia has investigated ways of distributing nerve agents for assassinations, May told parliament.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry called the expulsions a “provocative gesture.” A Kremlin spokesman said the West was making a “mistake” and that President Vladimir Putin would make a final decision about Russia’s response.

Moscow has denied being behind the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the southern English city of Salisbury. Skripal, 66 and Yulia Skripal, 33, were found unconscious on a public bench in a shopping centre on March 4 and remain critically ill in hospital.

“We assess that more than 130 people in Salisbury could have been potentially exposed to this nerve agent,” May said.

Monday’s wave of expulsions followed EU leaders saying last week that evidence presented by May of Russian involvement in the attack was a solid basis for further action.

The staff expelled by Washington includes 12 people identified by the United States as intelligence officers from Russia’s mission to the United Nations headquarters in New York. They were involved in activities outside their official capacity and an abuse of their privileges of residence, US Ambassador Nikki Haley said.

Russian UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia called it “a very unfortunate, very unfriendly move”.

Trump also ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle because of its proximity to a US submarine base and planemaker and defence contractor Boeing Co (BA.N), a senior US official said. Seattle was a hub of Russian cyber espionage, both political and commercial, according to two US intelligence officials.

The administration officials said “well over 100 intelligence officers operated in the United States and Washington’s action cuts 60 of them.”

The envoys and their families have been given a week to leave the United States, according to one US official. Australia has issued the same deadline to its expelled diplomats.