A top Russian diplomat says Moscow is preparing a “tough response” to Monday’s announcement by the United States that it is expelling 60 Russian diplomats.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the RIA Novosti news agency on Tuesday that Russia was disappointed by the U.S. announcement that it would expel 60 Russian diplomats and shut down a Russian consulate in Seattle.
Ryabkov said the U.S. move “will be met with a tough response” but he did not elaborate.
The United States, European Union nations, and some other countries announced they would expel a total of more than 130 Russian diplomats in response to the nerve agent attack on a former Russian intelligence officer and his daughter in Britain.
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia remain in critical condition in the hospital in the English city of Salisbury after being exposed to what British authorities say was a Soviet-made military-grade nerve agent on March 4.
Meanwhile, top EU lawmaker Guy Verhofstadt wants the European Union to sharpen sanctions on the Kremlin if necessary but also insists on a broader strategy to reach out to Russians in general.
The leader of the liberal ALDE group backed the expulsions of diplomatic staff by EU nations but said, “that’s not enough.”
In an interview with The Associated Press, he said that economic cooperation and visa liberalization were just as important as a clampdown on President Vladimir Putin and his closest allies.
He compared it to the Helsinki detente process during the Cold War when channels were being kept open despite the fact that both sides had hundreds of nuclear warheads pointed at one another.
“Why not establish a big economic space from Lisbon to Vladivostok?” Verhofstadt asked. “And at the same time asking, requesting for changes in the Russia society for application of the rule of law for a democracy, freedom of speech.”
