Moscow threatens to expel US diplomats in response to Washington’s statements

MOSCOW, Dec. 01 (YPA) – Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that by January 31, US embassy employees, who have been in Moscow for more than three years, must leave the country.

“We consider the American demand specifically an expulsion and intend to respond accordingly,” Zakharova said at a press conference on Wednesday.

She stressed that this was not Russia’s choice. “The United States imposed a similar game.”

In 2020, the US Department of State unilaterally set a three-year term for work missions for embassy staff in Washington and Russian consulates general in New York and Houston.

According to Zakharova, Russian diplomats, who have already left the United States and who have to leave, are banned from entering Russian diplomatic missions in the United States for work for three years.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, warned that Russia would certainly respond to the “impending expulsion” of Russian diplomats from America.

US sources reported that 27 Russian diplomats with their families will have to leave America on January 30 of next year 2022, and the same number will leave on June 30 at a later time.

Moscow had suspended the work of its diplomatic mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization “NATO” in response to the alliance’s leadership expelling Russian diplomats accredited to the alliance “suddenly”.

YPA