The three Baltic states will deport several diplomats and Russian embassy employees involved in the espionage. The head of Lithuanian diplomacy Gabrielius Landsbergis announced today that it will do so in solidarity with the Czech Republic.
“My colleagues from Latvia and Estonia expelled one employee at the embassy,” Landsberg said, adding that his country expelled two. Both are diplomats, but according to the Lithuanian government, they were involved in espionage. The minister informed the Russian ambassador, who summoned him. Both phases must leave the country within seven days.
Three small Baltic states, constantly under pressure from their big neighbor, are not the first to follow the Czech Republic in a diplomatic dispute and send Russian diplomats home. Slovakia has already taken this step, as three Russian embassy employees have had to pack their bags.
Soon, Russian diplomatic spokeswoman Maria Zakharov warned that Moscow would respond to the expulsion of its diplomats from the Baltic states. “Their diplomats can already begin to determine which of them will have to pack things,” a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry told TASS.
A diplomatic row erupted between Prague and Moscow on Saturday due to the Czech side’s reasonable suspicion that Russian intelligence was responsible for the 2014 bombings in the FRPTIS.
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