The Russian Foreign Ministry has summoned the heads of diplomatic missions from 23 countries to say how many of their officials are to leave Moscow following the UK spy poisoning. Four German diplomats are to go home.
Ambassadors from several European and Western nations were summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday amid a diplomatic crisis triggered by the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal that has seen a number of countries expel Russian diplomats and a quid pro quo response from Moscow.
The German, French, Italian, British, Swedish, Belgian, Dutch, Australian, Canadian, Czech, Croatian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Slovakian and Ukrainian ambassadors were among the national envoys seen at the ministry building in the Russian capital.
The Foreign Ministry had said it would summon the envoys of Western states who had taken “unfriendly steps” toward Russia over the poisoning. “The envoys will be handed protest notes and told about the Russian side’s retaliatory measures.”
Some 59 diplomats from the 23 countries were being expelled and the ministry said it reserved the right to take action against a further four nations in what it called baseless demands for its own diplomats to leave.
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