EU countries expel dozens of Russian diplomats
BRUSSELS, Belgium — EU countries Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and the Czech Republic on Tuesday announced the expulsion of dozens of Russian diplomats suspected of spying, in coordinated action taken in the shadow of Moscow's war in Ukraine.
Russia said it would respond in kind.
Belgian Foreign Minister Sophie Wilmes said her country was kicking out 21 diplomats from Russia's embassy in Brussels and consulate in Antwerp, giving them two weeks to leave.
She said the move was made in conjunction with the neighbouring Netherlands, whose foreign ministry said it was expelling 17 Russian diplomats considered "secretly active" as intelligence officers.
Ireland's Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said four "senior officials" from Russia's embassy in Dublin had been told to leave for engaging in activities "not... in accordance with international standards of diplomatic behaviour" — code for spying.
The Czech foreign ministry said that one diplomat in the Russian embassy in Prague had been given 72 hours to leave. A Czech official told AFP the diplomat was Russia's deputy ambassador.
"Together with our Allies, we are reducing the Russian intelligence presence in the EU," the Czech foreign ministry tweeted.
'Principle of reciprocity'
Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, told AFP:
"Responses will be provided on the basis of the principle of reciprocity."
She did not provide further details.
Separately, the Russian foreign ministry denounced the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the Netherlands, calling it an "unfriendly step" and proof that Hague had no interest "in maintaining normal diplomatic channels of communication."
"The Dutch have outdone themselves in their desire to 'hit' the Russian embassy in a more painful way," the ministry added.
The expulsions announced Tuesday ratcheted up Western blows directed at Russia following its February 24 invasion of Ukraine. Already several rounds of sanctions engineered mainly by the EU and the US have severely sapped Russia's economy.
Russia now considers all EU countries, along with the United States and allies including Japan, Britain and Australia, to be "hostile" countries.
In the wake of Russia's invasion, the United States in early March kicked out 12 Russian diplomats based in New York it deemed to be "intelligence operatives".
Russia retaliated last week by handing the US a list of American diplomats declared "persona non grata".
Poland, an EU country neighbouring Ukraine, last week expelled 45 Russian diplomats over alleged espionage, prompting Moscow to accuse Warsaw of embarking on "a dangerous escalation".
In April last year, the Czech Republic expelled dozens of Russian diplomats and Russia retaliated in a tit-for-tat move. Previously, Prague had accused Russian secret services of orchestrating blasts at an ammunition depot in eastern Czech Republic which killed two people in 2014.
Russia was left virtually isolated in the United Nations' General Assembly on March 2 this year when an overwhelming majority of countries — 141 in total — voted to adopt a non-binding resolution demanding a halt to Moscow's war in Ukraine.
Just five countries voted against the resolution: Russia, Syria, North Korea, Belarus and Eritrea. Another 35 abstained, including China.
Two days later, on March 4, the UN Human Rights Council voted to trigger an investigation into violations committed in the war in Ukraine. Thirty-two of the council's 47 members voted in favour, with just Russia and Eritrea voting against.
Two weeks ago, Russia announced it was quitting another international rights forum, the Council of Europe -- just before the pan-European body based in Strasbourg said it was kicking Russia out.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday secured Turkey's crucial backing for Ukraine's NATO aspirations after winning a US pledge for cluster munitions that could inflict massive damage on Russian forces on the battlefield.
Washington's decision to deliver the controversial weapons — banned across a large part of the world but not in Russia or Ukraine — dramatically ups the stakes in the war, which entered its 500th day Saturday.
Zelensky has been travelling across Europe trying to secure bigger and better weapons for his outmatched army, which has launched a long-awaited counteroffensive that is progressing less swiftly than Ukraine's allies had hoped. — AFP
Washington's decision to supply Ukraine with ATACMS long-range missiles is "a grave mistake", Russian ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov says Wednesday.
"The White House's decision to send long-range missiles to Ukrainians is a grave mistake. The consequences of this step, which was deliberately hidden from the public, will be of the most serious nature," he says in a statement. — AFP
President Vladimir Putin says Sunday that Russian forces had made gains in their Ukraine offensive including in Avdiivka, a symbolic industrial hub.
"Our troops are improving their position in almost all of this area, which is quite vast," he says in an interview on Russian television, an extract of which was posted on social media on Sunday. "This concerns the areas of Kupiansk, Zaporizhia and Avdiivka." — AFP
The regional governor says debris from a drone destroyed over the Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, fell on homes and killed three people, including a young child.
The air defense system "shot down an aircraft-type UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) approaching the city", says Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, adding that the falling debris destroyed several homes.
"Most importantly, three people were killed, one of them a small child," he writes on the Telegram messaging app, accompanied by pictures of a house reduced to a pile of rubble behind red and white police tape. — AFP
Ukraine's air force says on Tuesday that it had destroyed 27 of 36 Russian attack drones overnight in the south of the country.
Ukrainian forces downed 27 "Shahed-136/131" drones in the southern Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions, the air force said on the messaging platform Telegram.
In all, Moscow had launched 36 of the Iranian-made drones from the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014, it says. — AFP
The Kremlin claims on Friday Russian forces never targeted civilian infrastructure after Ukraine blamed Moscow for a missile attack that killed over 50 people in the eastern village of Groza.
"We repeat that the Russian military does not strike civilian targets. Strikes are carried out on military targets, on places where military personnel are concentrated," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says in his daily briefing. — AFP
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