Key Takeaways
- The United States expelled Russian diplomats citing no explanation.
- Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov described the move as a revenge act by the State Department.
- Both countries accuse each other of retaliation, with no clear justification provided.
Moscow: Two Russian diplomats are being expelled from the United States without any explanation. The State Department is simply taking revenge with another confrontational act, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said in a statement.
A source from the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday confirmed to Sputnik that the United States had decided to expel two Russian diplomats and called the decision “unfounded.”
“I can confirm that a few days ago the US authorities made this latest confrontational attack and declared ‘persona non grata‘ two diplomats of the Russian Embassy in Washington,” Antonov said. “However, the following fact is surprising: when presenting the note on the expulsion, colleagues at the State Department assured us for some reason that they did not intend to advertise this story and share details with the press.”
The US administration, he added, wanted to show that the recent expulsion of American diplomats from Russia for “subversive activities has not gone unanswered.”
“It is noteworthy that when I asked during a meeting at the State Department to explain what exactly our colleagues were accused of, the interlocutors were unable to provide any arguments unless one counts the reference to the fact that, they say, the authorities of the host country are not obliged to explain anything. Thus, in fact, we are dealing with banal revenge, which does not honor American diplomacy,” Antonov said.
