Moscow will expel ten Romanian diplomats in retaliation for a similar measure taken by Bucharest last month following the invasion of Ukraine, the Romanian and Russian foreign ministries announced on Friday (May 13th).
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A Bulgarian will also be fired, according to Moscow.
"
The Russian Federation has declared 'personae non gratae' ten staff members of the Romanian Embassy in Moscow
," Bucharest said in a statement.
Retaliatory measure
This is a retaliatory measure following the announcement on April 5 of the expulsion of ten Russian diplomats “
whose activities were contrary to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations
”.
Russia also condemns "
strongly the unfounded attempts of the Romanian side to blame Russia for war crimes in Ukraine
", as well as "
the Bucharest line
" consisting of "
whitewashing the abuses committed against the civilian population the battalions (Ukrainian) nationalists
”.
On Thursday, Romania summoned Russian Ambassador Valeri Kuzmin to protest after an article appeared on the embassy's website.
“
The repeated use by the Russian mission of inappropriate, offensive and provocative language addressed to Romania and NATO is unacceptable
,” the ministry explained at the time.
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Since the start of the Russian operation in Ukraine, Western countries have implemented several rounds of sanctions against Russia, accompanied by the expulsion of hundreds of Russian diplomats.
Moscow has promised to respond to each of these measures and has already expelled dozens of Western diplomats.