ST PETERSBURG (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th September, 2018) St. Petersburg authorities told Sputnik on Thursday that they did not extend the lease with the Anglo-American School, which was a structural unit of the previously closed US Consulate General in the second-largest Russian city.
"The Anglo-American School of St. Petersburg is a structural subdivision of the US Consulate General in St. Petersburg. After the closure of this consular office in St. Petersburg, there are no legal grounds for the functioning of the school, and therefore the lease agreement with the school for the provision of premises, which expires on September 27, 2018, cannot be extended," the city committee on external relations said.
The school was founded in 1975. Some 140 children of consulates' employees and of other foreigners studied there.
Moscow and Washington mutually expelled diplomats on several occasions, as political tensions between the two countries escalated over a number of incidents. Another round of came this March, after US President Donald Trump ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats and closure of the Russian Consulate General in Seattle over allegations of Moscow's involvement in the poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the United Kingdom. Russia has strongly and repeatedly denied any involvement in the case and, in a proportionate response, expelled 60 US diplomats and shut down the US Consulate General in St. Petersburg.
