TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgia has ordered a Russian diplomat to leave the country within a week, joining governments in the United States and across Europe in censuring Russia over a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy in Britain.

Georgia and Russia severed diplomatic ties after a brief war in August 2008 over the breakaway South Ossetia region, but Russian diplomats have a presence there, operating out of a Russian interests section in the Swiss embassy.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemns the use of chemical weapons on the territory of the United Kingdom that caused grave human suffering to three individuals and posed serious threat to the life and health of others,” the ministry said in a statement late on Thursday.

Russia has denied any involvement in the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. A British policeman who attended the scene of the poisoning, in the English city of Salisbury, was hospitalized. He has since been discharged.