Italy has expelled 30 Russian diplomats, said Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio. His Danish colleague Jeppe Kofod said 15 Russian intelligence officers who worked under diplomatic guise at the Russian embassy in Copenhagen had to go within 14 days. Vienna hesitates with expulsions.
Kofod stated that no Russian espionage was accepted on Danish soil. At the same time, the Danish Foreign Ministry emphasized that it did not want to cut diplomatic ties to Moscow. The Russian ambassador and the rest of his embassy in the Danish capital are therefore not affected by the expulsion. Foreign Minister Ann Linde announced the expulsion of three Russian diplomats from her country, Sweden, on Tuesday.
Di Maio said in Berlin on Tuesday that the 30 employees at the Russian embassy in Rome had been declared undesirable. These measures have been agreed with the European partners. Di Maio explained that the expulsions of the Russians are linked to national security issues in Italy and the current crisis “following the Russian Federation’s unjustified aggression against Ukraine”. The Russian Ambassador Sergei Razov was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Rome in the morning, where he was informed about the expulsion of his employees.
“Terrible actions in Ukraine”
Spain announced the expulsion of “at least 25” employees of the Russian embassy in Madrid in response to the atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine. Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said the victims were diplomats and staff. That was a reaction to the “terrible actions in Ukraine,” the minister told journalists. Those affected also posed “a threat to the security interests” of Spain, said Albares. The minister’s announcement came just hours before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech to the Spanish parliament, which was scheduled to take place at 5 p.m.
Similar steps were taken in Berlin and Paris on Monday. Germany declared 40 Russian diplomats undesirable, which is tantamount to expulsion. France also decided to expel from the country numerous Russian employees with diplomatic status whose activities run counter to French security interests. Lithuania even expelled the Russian ambassador himself from the country.
Austria is still hesitating
In Austria, the Noe put pressure on Tuesday to expel Russian diplomats from the country. Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and Poland also did the same, said Neos Secretary General Douglas Hoyos, according to a broadcast. Summoning the Russian ambassador in Vienna, Dmitri Ljubinski, to the foreign office for an – “apparently fruitless” – talk is definitely not enough, Hoyos said to Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP). “When Russian diplomats spread Putin’s lying propaganda here and deny Russian war crimes in Ukraine, there will be severe consequences and swift, decisive action. There is no question that diplomatic exchanges must continue.” According to Hoyos, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations would “without further ado allow Austria to limit the number of diplomats to the bare minimum.”
In Berlin, Schallenberg said he hesitated to expel Russian diplomats. If he hears a specific case from the intelligence services, he will respond. But unlike Germany or France, he will not expel a large number of diplomats. He is of the opinion that such expulsions should not be carried out on a national basis, but should be agreed beforehand in Brussels – as Rome has done, according to Minister Di Maio. In addition, Austria, as the official seat of the United Nations, must also ensure that the representations remain operational. In addition, one should not risk that one’s own diplomats could then be expelled and that Austria would be underrepresented.
Source: Nachrichten
