MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. The Russian Foreign Ministry has terminated the accreditation and announced the expulsion on the ‘tit-for-tat’ basis of four staffers of the Lithuanian embassy, three staffers of the Latvian embassy and three staffers of the Estonian embassy and the Pskov office of the Estonian consulate-general in St. Petersburg.

"In a tit-for-tat move the accreditation has been terminated of four staffers of the Lithuanian embassy, three staffers of the Latvian embassy and three staffers of the Estonian embassy and the Pskov office of Estonia’s consulate-general in St. Petersburg. They were told to leave Russia within the same deadlines that were set for the departure of Russian diplomatic missions’ staffers from the Baltic countries," the Foreign Ministry said in a news release on Tuesday.

The chiefs of these countries’ diplomatic missions had been summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday. The ambassadors were handed strong protests over the "provocative and groundless expulsion of Russian embassy staffers from these Baltic countries".