MOSCOW, April 22. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia is expelling the first secretary of the Canadian embassy in Moscow, a Russian Foreign Ministry source told ITAR-TASS on Tuesday.

On April 22, the Canadian embassy in Moscow was notified that the embassy’s First Secretary Margarita Atanasov would be expelled from Russian in the next 14 days.

“The step came in retaliation for the recent expulsion from Ottawa of an aide to the Russian military attache,” the source said.

“It is not the first time that the Russian and Canadian Foreign Ministries had “exchanged niceties”. Each time, such incidents were initiated by the Canadian side.

“The talk is about groundless visa denials to Russian diplomats. It seems that a destructive anti-Russian stance of the Canadian authorities on the events in Ukraine and Crimea is only adding fuel to fire,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Despite all the differences with the Canadians, Russia is not against closing the current negative page in bilateral relations.

"There is a field for constructive interaction in areas where the interest of the two countries objectively coincide, such as in the Arctic and in the sphere of economy. But it is natural that openly unfriendly demarches should not be left unanswered,” the Russian Foreign Ministry source stressed.