Russia is expelling 10 Romanian diplomats in a tit-for-tat move following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the Romanian foreign ministry said Friday.
„The Russian federation declared 10 employees of the Romanian embassy in Moscow personae non gratae,” the ministry said in a statement.
The development is a retaliatory move after Romania expelled 10 Russian diplomats on April 5 „whose activities breached the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” the ministry said.
The moves are part of a series of tit-for-tat expulsions by Russia after European countries kicked out more than 300 of its diplomats in the wake of its military campaign in Ukraine.
The Russian foreign ministry also said Friday it „firmly rejects the baseless attempts by the Romanian side to blame Russia for war crimes in Ukraine.”
It slammed „Bucharest’s policy of whitewashing the atrocities committed by (Ukraine’s) national guard against civilians as well as the supply of weapons, equipment and other assistance to the regime in Kyiv”.
Romania summoned the Russian ambassador to Bucharest Valery Kuzmin on Thursday to protest an article published on the Russian embassy website, that said „a stream of outright lies, falsifications, staged provocations, and disinformation” about what was happening in Ukraine was ” was the work of Western countries.
„The repeated use by the Russian mission of inappropriate, offensive and provocative language directed at Romania and NATO is unacceptable,” the ministry said.
