The Trump administration is "certainly applying pressure" on Russia after the United States expelled 60 diplomats over a nerve-agent attack on a former Moscow spy in Britain, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday.
"We're certainly encouraging and working with our allies and partners also to do so," Sanders said at the daily briefing. "I think you've seen an unprecedented number of countries step up and join the United States in that effort."
The expulsion, announced Monday, was the strongest action the White House has taken against the Kremlin since President Donald Trump took office last year.
The United States joined governments across Europe in punishing Moscow for the recent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a military-grade nerve gas in England.
British Prime Minister Theresa May said 18 countries had announced plans to expel Russian officials, including 14 in the European Union.
In total, 100 Russian diplomats were being removed, the biggest Western expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War.
Russia vowed to retaliate, with the Foreign Ministry saying that "this unfriendly step by this group of countries won’t pass without impact and we will respond."
Defense Secretary James Mattis on Tuesday held Russian President Vladimir Putin "responsible as the head of state" for the poisoning.
Mattis labeled the attack "attempted murder of a man and his daughter."
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