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MOSCOW, March 28 (Itar-Tass) - RIA Novosti. Twitter users chose which American diplomatic missions in Russia to close in response to a similar move by the United States authorities.

A poll in the social network on Monday was arranged by diplomats from the Russian embassy in Washington. They proposed voting for the closure of one of the three general consulates of the United States: in Vladivostok, in Yekaterinburg and in St. Petersburg.

A day later the voting was over, 57.5 thousand people had time to participate in the poll, and the record itself retouched about 2.9 thousand times.

Almost half of the respondents - 47 percent - spoke in favor of closing the US diplomatic mission in St. Petersburg. The second place was given to the consulate general in Yekaterinburg - 35 percent of respondents chose this option. Another 18 percent advocated closing the US diplomatic mission in Vladivostok.

Expulsion of Russian diplomats from the USA

The embassy-initiated vote became the response to the decision of the United States to send 60 Russian diplomats in connection with the poisoning of ex-employee of the GRU Sergey Skripal. In particular, the US authorities announced that they are sending 48 Russian diplomats and 12 employees of the Russian Mission to the United Nations, as well as closing the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Seattle.

Diplomats are obliged to leave the country within a week, specified in administration of the White house. They also explained that the choice of a closed diplomatic mission is due to "its proximity to one of the bases of submarines and (company) Boeing."

Day X - March 30

As the Russian ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, said, the Russian Consulate General in Seattle will close on March 30. Employees of the Consulate General in Seattle will have to leave the city until April 25, said in turn, the consular adviser of the Russian Federation in Seattle, Khalit Aisin.

"Reception stops at 5 pm on the 30th, access to the premises ends at 23.59 on April 1. And we all will be distributed to other points until 23.59 on April 24," the source said.

The website of the consulate says that the reception of citizens in connection with the decision of the US authorities to close the consulate general ceased on March 26. Until March 30, the consulate will only issue ready-made passports.

Moscow will respond to the "rudeness" of the West

The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said that Moscow is preparing a response to the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the United States and a number of other Western countries.

"There will certainly be an answer to everything that we saw today: for each country, the appropriate measures will be taken: both to expel diplomats and to close the general consulate of the Russian Federation in the United States, particularly in Seattle," she said on the air of the program " 60 minutes "on the TV channel Russia-1.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia would respond to the "rudeness" of Western countries, which expel Russian diplomats because of the case of poisoning the former GRU officer Sergei Skripal.

"We answer, do not doubt, because such rudeness to demolish, of course, nobody wants, and we will not," the minister told journalists in Tashkent.

According to the minister, the situation around the "Skripal case" proves that there are not so many countries in the world pursuing an independent policy.

"The compelling conclusion is that we were right when we stressed several times how little independent countries remain in the modern world, in modern Europe," Lavrov said.

The Case of Skripal

Ex-Colonel GRU Sergei Skripal, who worked for British intelligence, and his daughter Julia found on March 4 unconscious in the British city of Salisbury. London claims that they were poisoned with a substance developed within the framework of the Soviet program "Novice", although there was no project with such a name in the USSR, and figures were used to designate the system. The name "Newcomer" was replicated by foreign mass media from the Soviet scientist Vila Mirzayanov, who had nothing to do with the development of chemical weapons.

On Monday, March 26, 16 countries of the European Union, as well as the United States, Canada, Norway, Ukraine and several other states decided to expel Russian diplomats in connection with the incident in Salisbury.

Link: https://ria.ru/world/20180328/1517416395.html