WASHINGTON, March 31. /TASS/. The case over the alleged poisoning of the former Russian military intelligence officer and British spy Sergei Skripal has played into the US hands as a pretext for inappropriate actions against Russian diplomats, the Russian Ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov told a group of Russian reporters in Washington.

"As for today, we haven’t received any reasonable explanations for the expulsion of our diplomats," he said. "The Skripals case is just a pretext for the fanning of Russophobia so that the Americans could take tough, disproportionate and provocative steps against the Russian diplomats and diplomatic properties.".