BERLIN: Germany will expel four Russian diplomats over Moscow's suspected involvement in the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in England, the German Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

Moscow has denied responsibility for the March 4 attack on Skripal and his daughter, both still in intensive care after the first known offensive use of a nerve toxin in Europe since World War Two.

The move, part of a wave of coordinated expulsions by European Union and NATO countries, affected more than 100 Russian diplomats, the biggest Western expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War.

"It is clear that there must be consequences. We in the European Union have therefore adopted an unequivocal position and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the United Kingdom," Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a statement.

Giving the diplomats seven days to leave, Maas said the Russian government had not answered any of the unresolved questions around the attack and had shown no willingness to play a constructive role in clarifying the circumstances around it.

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