Moscow: Expulsion of Russian diplomats to the European Union is a hostile step

Brussels (ST): The Russian Mission to the European Union announced today that the decision to expel 19 diplomats from the mission’s staff is a hostile and irresponsible step and will receive an appropriate response.

TASS news agency quoted the mission as saying in a statement: “This is a  blatantly unfriendly and even hostile step, especially as it is absolutely unjustified within the framework of the European Union’s approach aimed at dismantling the partnership relations between Russia and the Union, which are relations that both parties until recently proudly described them as a strategic.

The Russian mission confirmed that this behavior is irresponsible and will receive an appropriate response.

 Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, had announced earlier that a number of employees of the Russian mission to the European Union were “undesirable” and claimed that their activities “contradict their diplomatic status” without revealing the number of diplomats whose accreditation will be withdrawn from Brussels.

The permanent representative of Russia to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, was summoned to the headquarters of the European Department of Foreign Affairs, where he was informed of this decision taken against the background of allegations of events in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, which Kiev and Western capitals accused the Russian army of being responsible for them.

K.Q.