WASHINGTON _ The Trump administration on Monday ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats and the closing of Moscow's last diplomatic outpost on the West Coast, part of a coordinated effort with U.S. allies to punish Russia for an attack in Britain using a deadly nerve agent.
The action, which involved a larger number of diplomats than had been expected, marks a sharp ratcheting up of tensions with Moscow.
Citing "reckless" behavior by Moscow, administration officials said the severe retaliation came in response to the attack on a former Soviet spy and his daughter in Britain earlier this month, which British and U.S. intelligence agencies blamed on the Russian government.
All 60 Russians _ 48 based at the Russian Embassy in Washington and 12 at the United Nations in New York _ are intelligence agents "cloaked" by diplomatic disguise, said a senior administration official who briefed reporters in advance on condition of anonymity. The order also includes closing the Russian Consulate in Seattle.
Administration officials said the expulsions would "degrade" Russia's ability to spy on Americans.
The U.S. action followed earlier decisions by Britain to expel diplomats and came in conjunction with similar steps by other European nations.
Other countries joining in Monday's action against Russia included 14 members of the European Union and several former Soviet Baltic states. Germany and France expelled four diplomats each, Poland four, Ukraine 13 and Lithuania three.
In a statement, the White House said President Donald Trump had ordered the expulsions to "make the United States safer by reducing Russia's ability to spy on Americans and to conduct covert operations that threaten America's national security."
The Seattle Consulate was ordered closed because of its "proximity to one of our submarine bases and Boeing," the statement said.
In language unusually harsh for the Trump administration where Russia is concerned, the statement added that Moscow's use of a "military-grade chemical weapon" on British soil was the "latest in its ongoing pattern of destabilizing activities around the world."
Notably, however, Trump did not immediately make a statement in his own voice. He has so far refused to personally condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin for the attack, instead calling him recently to congratulate him for his victory in a dubious election. Trump was also slow to publicly acknowledge Russian complicity in the poisoning, which critically injured Sergei Skripal and his daughter on March 4 in the British city of Salisbury.
Last year, the administration ordered Russia to close its consulate in San Francisco, an iconic building and the oldest Russian diplomatic mission in the U.S. That order left Seattle as the only Russian diplomatic post on the West Coast. It came as part of a tit-for-tat dispute between Moscow and Washington over economic sanctions approved overwhelmingly by Congress, but only reluctantly enacted by Trump.
The sanctions then were in response to Russia's meddling in the 2016 election campaign.
Russia immediately responded to Monday's action with threats of "reciprocal" retaliation, presumably the expulsion of U.S. diplomats from already diminished missions in Russia.
