Russian news agencies say they returned on two flights that landed Sunday at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport. One carried diplomats from the Russian Embassy in Washington; aboard the other were diplomats from the New York consulate and Russia’s United Nations mission.
The United States last week ordered 60 Russian diplomats to leave, part of a widespread expulsion of diplomats by Britain and some of its allies in connection with the poisoning of a former Russian double agent and his daughter.
Britain alleges Russian involvement in the March 4 nerve agent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury. Moscow adamantly denies that and has ordered tit-for-tat expulsions of Western diplomats.