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Russia announced the expulsion of more than 150 diplomats, including 60 Americans, on Thursday and said it was closing a US consulate in retaliation for the wave of Western expulsions of Russian diplomats over the poisoning of an ex-spy and his daughter in Britain, a tit-for-tat response that intensified the Kremlin's rupture with the United States and Europe.
If further "hostile actions" against Russian diplomatic and consular offices in the US continue, additional steps will be taken against its staff and facilities in Russia, the ministry said.
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 expulsions of Russian diplomats began on March 14, when the United Kingdom declared 23 people personae non grata, claiming that Moscow was "highly likely" behind the alleged poisoning of former spy Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the chemical agent "novichok".
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said USA ambassador Jon Huntsman had been summoned and was informed of the "retaliatory measures". "They include the expulsion of the same number of diplomats and our decision to withdraw consent to the work of the Consulate General in St. Petersburg".
Pigeons take off from wires in front of the Russian Foreign Ministry building, in Moscow, Russia, March 29, 2018. The St. Petersburg consulate must be freed up by March 31.
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Saying the US isn't ruling out further action against Russia, Nauert said, "The Russian Federation is not interested in a dialogue on issues that matter to our two countries". But health officials said his daughter, Yulia Skripal, who was also exposed to the nerve agent, has responded well to treatment and is no longer in critical condition, The Associated Press reported.
Hitting out at the "so-called Skripal case", Mr Lavrov said Russia's measures were a reaction to "absolutely unacceptable actions that are taken against us under very harsh pressure from the United States and Britain".
After initially holding back, the Kremlin later responded in summer 2017 by ordering the U.S.to cut its diplomatic staff in Russian Federation by over 700, reducing it by more than half and forcing the U.S.to significantly scale back operations at its consulates. The deadly chemical set off panic and was internationally condemned. Her father remains in critical but stable condition.
Fifty-eight employees of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and two staff members of the Consulate General in the city of Yekaterinburg must leave the country by April 5, according to the Foreign Ministry.
"Rest assured, we will respond", Lavrov said Tuesday.
In an interview before Thursday's expulsions, Huntsman said the nerve agent attack can't go unpunished.
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