MOSCOW — Russia is to expel 60 US diplomats and has ordered the closure of the US consulate in St. Petersburg, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday, in retaliation for a similar US move.

Lavrov, making the announcement in Moscow, said the US ambassador Jon Huntsman had been summoned to the Foreign Ministry to be told of the move.

Washington expelled 60 diplomats earlier this week as part of a coordinated global response to the poisoning of a former Russian double agent, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, on British soil. UK authorities

have openly blamed Russia for using a military-grade nerve agent for the poisoning, in the English city of Salisbury on March 4.

More than 20 countries said they would expel more than 100 Russian diplomats this week over the case.

Russia has firmly denied responsibility for the poisoning and President Vladimir Putin has dismissed it as “delirium.” Russia had already been in a tit for tat with Britain over the case, in which both countries expelled 23

diplomats, and Russia clamped down on British cultural institutions in the country.