Russia has told
Britain it must send home "just over 50" more of its
diplomats in a worsening standoff with the West over the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain.
Russia has already retaliated in kind against Britain and ejected 23 British diplomats over the poisoning of former Russian spy
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. London says Moscow stood behind the attack, something Russia denies.
British Ambassador Laurie Bristow was summoned again on Friday and told London had one month to cut its diplomatic contingent in Russia to the same size as the Russian mission in Britain.
On Saturday, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Reuters that meant Britain would have to cut "a little over 50" of its diplomats in Russia.
"We asked for parity. The Brits have 50 diplomats more than the Russians," said Zakharova.
When asked if that meant London would have to bring home exactly 50 diplomats, she said: "A little over 50."
Putin’s war of words with the West escalated into war games yesterday. In a show of force, the Russian president demonstrated his fearsome new Sarmat missile. Dubbed Satan 2 by Nato, it can travel at 20 times the speed of sound and carry 12 nuclear warheads up to 6,000 miles.
The test launch, shown on an “Easter message” video from the Russian defence ministry, came as
Vladimir Putin ordered further cuts to Britain’s diplomatic ranks in Moscow. Meanwhile police in Salisbury are closing in on the gang behind the nerve agent poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia, which has led to tit-for-tat expulsions.
In the video, the Satan 2 missile emerges from an underground silo, pauses as if hovering above the ground, and then speeds away in a cloud of white smoke. The launch was at the snow-covered Plesetsk spaceport in the northern Archangel province of Russia close to the Arctic Circle.
The new intercontinental ballistic missile was hailed by the Russian president as being able to fly over the North or South Poles and strike any target in the world.
“No defence systems will be able to withstand it,” Putin said during his state-of-the-nation speech earlier this month. As relations between Moscow and the West hit a new low not seen since the Cold War, the Russian foreign ministry yesterday gave Britain 30 days to reduce the number of diplomats in Moscow to the same number that Russia has in London.