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Russian ambassador in Paris against declaration of Russian diplomats personae non gratae

Alexey Meshkov stressed that "Russia reserves the right to give an adequate response to the actions of Paris"

PARIS, April 5. /TASS/. Russian Ambassador in Paris Alexey Meshkov protested to the French Foreign Ministry against declaring Russian diplomats personae non gratae, calling it an unfriendly action, the Russian embassy told TASS on Tuesday.

"On April 5, the Russian ambassador was summoned to the French Foreign Ministry, where he was handed a list of employees of Russian foreign missions, declared personae non gratae under far-fetched pretext," the embassy said, "For his part, the ambassador expressed his strong protest against the unfriendly action of the French authorities and emphasized that it directly damages Russian-French relations, which are already complicated at the moment."

The ambassador, as the embassy noted, stressed that "Russia reserves the right to give an adequate response to the actions of Paris."

On Monday evening, the French Foreign Ministry also announced its intention to expel a group of diplomats. According to AFP agency, the ministry planned to expel 35 employees of the Russian Embassy. Russian Foreign Ministry has already said it will respond to this demarche of the French side. Earlier on Monday, the Russian ambassador to Berlin had been summoned to the German Foreign Ministry, where he was notified that 40 employees of Russian diplomatic and consular missions had been expelled.

On March 29, a number of European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland, announced that they were expelling Russian diplomats amid the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. In particular, 21 Russian diplomats were expelled from Belgium, 17 - from the Netherlands and 4 from Ireland. Earlier, a number of other EU states, including Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, also expelled Russian diplomats.

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