PRAGUE, April 22. /TASS/. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis believes that the number of employees in Russian and Czech diplomatic missions must be balanced, he said, according to local media.

The conflict regarding the number of diplomats began after the Czech Republic expelled 18 employees of the Russian embassy, whom Prague called officers of Russian intelligence agencies. The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed its decisive protest and expelled 20 Czech embassy employees.

"The number of employees in both embassies is unbalanced," Babis said, adding that he considers it necessary to bring both missions’ staff to equality.

"Russia’s reaction was ungrounded, because the Czech Republic did nothing [bad] to Russia," Babis believes.

Speaking about the absence of reaction from Russia to Prague’s demand to get the 20 expelled embassy employees back to Moscow, Babis stated that the Czech government will "likely react even before its meeting," scheduled for 14:00 [15:00 Moscow time].

On Wednesday, Czech Foreign Minister Jakub Kulhanek expressed a protest to Russian Ambassador Alexander Zmeyevsky regarding Moscow’s expulsion of 20 embassy employees and demanded that they are reinstated in their positions in the mission. Prague waited for Moscow’s decision until 12:00 local time, Thursday.

Earlier, the Czech government stated that staff of the Czech Embassy in Moscow is much smaller than that of the Russian mission in Prague. The opposition called on the government to take steps to achieve parity in missions’ staff. According to the Czech Foreign Ministry, the Russian mission now employs 27 diplomats and 67 technical employees, while the Czech mission employs 5 diplomats and 19 technical employees.