Russia’s foreign minister said other countries that expelled Russians could expect a “symmetrical” response.
On Friday, several ambassadors from Western countries were summoned to the Russian foreign ministry.
The move comes amid a row over the nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter in the UK.
Sergei
Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench in the
city of Salisbury on 4 March, and the UK government has blamed Russia
for the attack.
Russia has vehemently denied any role in the Salisbury attack. Mr Skripal remains in a critical but stable condition. His daughter’s condition is said to be improving.
More
than 20 countries have expelled Russian envoys in solidarity with the
UK. Among them is the US, which earlier this week ordered 60 diplomats
to leave and closed the Russian consulate general in Seattle.
Russia declared 58 US diplomats in Moscow and two in the city of Yekaterinburg to be “personae non gratae”.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said US ambassador Jon Huntsman had been informed of the “retaliatory measures”.
“As
for the other countries, everything will also be symmetrical in terms
of the number of people from their diplomatic missions who will be
leaving Russia,” he added.
Later, a US state department spokeswoman said America reserved the right to take further action.
The Russian foreign minister also accused Britain of “forcing everyone to follow an anti-Russian course”.
He
said Moscow was responding to “absolutely unacceptable actions that are
taken against us under very harsh pressure from the United States and
Britain under the pretext of the so-called Skripal case”.
He reiterated Russian calls for consular access to Yulia Skripal – a Russian citizen.
Russia,
he said, was also seeking a meeting with leaders of the Organisation
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to “establish the truth”.