
On Wednesday Prime Minister Theresa May gave the diplomats - whom she said were undeclared intelligence agents - a week to leave Britain, an order which prompted Russian Federation to retaliate with its own expulsion of 23 British diplomats.
Three buses with diplomatic number plates left the Russian embassy compound in London on Tuesday morning, a Reuters photographer at the scene said.
Tensions between the two nations have increased dramatically since the March 4 nerve-agent attack on Sergei Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia in Salisbury.
On Monday, inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) began running independent tests on samples taken from Salisbury to verify the British analysis, said an OPCW source speaking on condition of anonymity.
President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that the "slanderous anti-Russian flow coming from Britain is inexplicable, unfounded and driven by unclear motives".
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says there's serious information pointing to Russia's responsibility in the poisoning in Britain of a Russian ex-spy and his daughter, and that the duty now lies with Moscow to prove that it wasn't involved.
May and other European Union leaders are due to discuss the poisoning at a summit on Thursday.
Britain has thrown out 23 Russian diplomats over the nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia on March 4.
Mr Bristow told reporters afterwards that Britain had only expelled the Russian diplomats after Moscow had failed to explain how the nerve toxin had got to Salisbury.
More news: Jim Carrey shocks with political paintings of White House figureheadsThe UK National Security Council will meet early next week to "consider next steps", the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London said in a statement on Saturday.
And the European Union's foreign ministers issued a statement saying the bloc "takes extremely seriously the United Kingdom government's assessment that it is highly likely that the Russian Federation is responsible".
The European Union on Monday condemned Skripal's poisoning, and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson dismissed Moscow's denials as absurd.
The Foreign Ministry said Moscow's measures were a response to what it called Britain's "provocative actions and groundless accusations".
British police appealed Saturday for witnesses who can help investigators reconstruct the Skripals' movements in the crucial hours before they were found unconscious.
It appears as though the investigation is now focusing on the auto that carried Sergei Skripal's daughter Yulia from the airport, however police say they are probing all "movements" of the Skripals.
Russia's foreign ministry has retaliated by ordering 23 British diplomats leave the country as well.
Russian news agencies cited politicians in Russia's upper house of parliament as welcoming the move to close the British Council, alleging it had been used as a cover by British spies.
Britain accuses Russia of the poisoning, which Western powers see as an example of increasingly aggressive Russian meddling overseas.
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