The Russian authorities decided to send home three Moldovan diplomats in response to the Moldovan authorities’ decision to declare three Russian diplomats undesirable in solidarity with the UK in the Skripal scandal, IPN reports.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russian, the ambassadors of Australia, Albania, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Canada, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Finland, France, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Estonia were summoned today, March 30.
The diplomats were handed over protest notes saying that, in response to the unmotivated decisions by the given states to expel employees of Russia’s embassies, based on unfounded accusations made by the UK against the Russian Federation in the case of Skripal, the Russian side declares personas non-grata a similar number of employees of the embassies of these states in Russia.
Given that Belgium, Hungary, Georgia, and Montenegro recently decided to join the 23 states, the Russian side reserved the right to take similar decisions in their case too.
The UK said Russia was “highly likely” responsible for the attempted murder of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, a British citizen, and his daughter Yulia, who came to visit him, in the English city of Salisbury on March 4. The Kremlin administration denies the accusations. The foreign affairs ministers of the EU member states adopted a position of solidarity with the UK, demanding that Russia should offer clarification. As a gesture of solidarity, a part of the EU member states and EU allies decided to expel Russian diplomats.
Sergei Skripal is still in a coma in a serious, but stable state. The press reported that his daughter want out of the coma and speaks, but will yet stay in the hospital.
