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Russian Embassy Asks Twitter What US Consulate Moscow Should Shutter In Retaliation

REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

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Ryan Pickrell China/Asia Pacific Reporter
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The Russian Embassy in the U.S. is asking Twitter for suggestions on how it should retaliate after the U.S. announced plans to expel Russian diplomats and close the Russian consulate in Seattle.

“US administration ordered the closure of the Russian Consulate in Seattle,” the Russian Embassy wrote on Twitter. “What US Consulate General would you close in Russia if it was up to you to decide?”

President Donald Trump is ordering the expulsion of 60 Russian intelligence officers with diplomatic cover and closing a Russian consular office in response to alleged Russian involvement in a nerve agent attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England, earlier this month. A British police officer was also affected by the nerve agent used in the attack — a Soviet-era chemical weapon known as Novichok.

The police officer has been released from the hospital, yet Skripal and his daughter remain in critical condition.

In the wake of the attack, British leadership expelled Russian diplomats, prompting a tit-for-tat response from Russia. Condemnation over what is believed to be another Moscow-orchestrated attack on foreign soil is spreading, as over a dozen countries have now moved to expel Russian diplomats.

“When you attack our friends you will face serious consequences,” a senior U.S. official said of the Trump administration’s decision Monday to punish Russia for its involvement in the attack, which is reminiscent of the poisoning of former Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko in the U.K. in 2006.

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