UKRAINE-CRISIS/RUSSIA-GERMANY – REUTERS Agency
MOSCOW, April 22 (Reuters) – Russia is responding in kind to the mass expulsion of its diplomats from Berlin, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
“The German authorities made a decision on another mass expulsion of employees of Russian diplomatic missions in Germany. We strongly condemn these actions by Berlin, which defiantly continues to destroy the entire complex of Russian-German relations,” the ministry stated.
According to the RIA news agency, which quoted a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, there will be more than 20 expelled German diplomats.
Relations between Moscow and Berlin, which used to be the biggest buyer of Russian oil and gas, have deteriorated since Russia sent troops to Ukraine in February 2022 and the West responded with sanctions.
“As a reaction to the hostile actions of Berlin, the Russian side decided to reflect the expulsion of German diplomats from Russia, as well as significantly limit the maximum number of employees of German diplomatic missions in our country,” the ministry said.
The German ambassador in Moscow was informed of these measures on April 5. (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin Editing in Spanish by Javier López de Lérida)
Source: Ambito
