Article snippet: White House announced Monday. The expulsions are in response to the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in Salisbury, U.K., earlier this month, and done in conjunction with up to 16 other Western countries, including Germany, Canada, France, and Ukraine -- the "largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers ever," according to British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. Of the 60 Russians in the U.S., 12 are stationed at the Russian mission to the United Nations, where senior administration officials said they were operating under the guise of diplomacy but were deemed to be conducting covert activities. The other 48 are from the embassy in Washington and other Russian missions across the U.S. "Today’s actions make the United States safer by reducing Russia’s ability to spy on Americans and to conduct covert operations that threaten America’s national security," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. "With these steps, the United States and our allies and partners make clear to Russia that its actions have consequences. The United States stands ready to cooperate to build a better relationship with Russia, but this can only happen with a change in the Russian government’s behavior." A senior administration official said the expulsions will remove a "large number of the unacceptably numerous Russian intelligence officers who abide in the United States" but noted that more Russian intelligence operatives re... Link to the full article to read more