Russia ordered U.S. Embassy staff who have been in Moscow for more than three years to leave the country by Jan. 31, a move that comes a day before diplomats hold talks to address the worsening relationship between the two countries.

Foreign ministry officials on Wednesday indicated that the decision to remove the U.S. Embassy staff was in retaliation for Washington’s expulsion of more than 50 Russian diplomats by June 30, in line with previously imposed term limits.

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Russia ordered U.S. Embassy staff who have been in Moscow for more than three years to leave the country by Jan. 31, a move that comes a day before diplomats hold talks to address the worsening relationship between the two countries.

Foreign ministry officials on Wednesday indicated that the decision to remove the U.S. Embassy staff was in retaliation for Washington’s expulsion of more than 50 Russian diplomats by June 30, in line with previously imposed term limits.

“I would like to emphasize that the choice is not ours,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing Wednesday. “Our American partners have forced us to play that way. We have long and persistently tried to reason with them and still direct them to some kind of constructive solution to the issue, but they made their choice.”

The State Department said it had asked the Russian diplomats to leave in line with existing policy.

“Just as the Russian Federation grants our diplomats with an initial three-year stay in Russia, the U.S. also informed Russia about a year ago that its diplomats would be subject to the same three-year assignments, which is not abnormal,” department spokeswoman Jalina Porter said.

Ms. Zakharova said Washington was violating diplomatic norms and the sovereign rights of states to determine how long its diplomats would remain in a host country. A further group of U.S. diplomats could be forced out by July 1 if no compromise is found, she said.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters Wednesday that Moscow wasn’t pleased about having to undertake the reciprocal measures and he urged the U.S. to show prudence and abandon its requirements.

News of the diplomats’ removal come as tensions between Washington and Russia continue to escalate over a variety of issues, most recently Russia’s military pressure on Ukraine and warnings by Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky of a possible Moscow-backed coup.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe summit in Stockholm on Thursday, a State Department official said Wednesday. Mr. Blinken will also sit down with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

Earlier this week the North Atlantic Treaty Organization warned Moscow that it would impose significant costs on Russia if it launched a new military incursion in Ukraine, while making clear the limits of the organization’s support for Kyiv, which isn’t a member of the alliance.

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Mr. Kuleba told reporters at the meeting that he has asked NATO to prepare a package of sanctions to deter Russia from invading Ukraine. Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and has supported separatists in the eastern part of the former Soviet republic, leading to earlier sanctions.

“We are very concerned about the movements we’ve seen along Ukraine’s border,” Mr. Blinken told reporters Tuesday. “We know that Russia often combines those efforts with internal efforts to destabilize a country. That’s part of the playbook.”

At Thursday’s meeting in Stockholm, the top U.S. and Russian diplomats are expected to lay the groundwork for a future call or virtual meeting between President Biden and Russian President

Vladimir Putin.

Messrs. Biden and Putin met at an in-person summit in Geneva in June, but Washington's efforts to seek closer engagement with Moscow don’t appear to have advanced the administration’s goal of achieving a more stable and predictable relationship.

Beside the issue of Ukraine’s sovereignty, the U.S. and Russia—Cold War foes—have clashed recently over diplomatic representation in each other’s countries and the supply of natural gas to Europe as winter approaches.

Mr. Putin said Wednesday that Russia is seeking binding guarantees that NATO won’t expand in the east and that its members won’t deploy weapons systems along Russia’s borders.

Ukraine wants NATO to make it a member, but President Biden has said the country needs to do more to fight corruption. Privately, officials from allied countries say Ukraine won’t be offered membership soon.

—James Marson contributed to this article.

Write to Ann M. Simmons at ann.simmons@wsj.com and William Mauldin at william.mauldin@wsj.com