Expelled Russian diplomats return from US amid spy dispute
By Associated Press
Apr 1, 2018 6:29 AM CDT
People gather as a bus and other vehicles are loaded at the Russian Embassy in Washington, Saturday, March 31, 2018. A group of Russian diplomats, who earlier in the week were ordered by the US Administration to leave the country, and their families have left Russia's embassy and will fly to Moscow....   (Associated Press)

MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian diplomats who were expelled from the United States and their families have returned to Moscow.

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.

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