MOSCOW, February 24. /TASS/. The Ukrainian embassy, the country’s diplomats and consular facilities have been completely safe in Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the Govorit Moskva radio station on Thursday.

"The Ukrainian embassy, as well as Ukrainian diplomats and consular facilities, have always been completely safe in Russia," she noted. "However, this decision (on the evacuation of the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow - TASS) is what Ukraine has opted for, particularly as they have been speaking about severing diplomatic relations and such," Zakharova noted.

At the same time, she stressed that Russian diplomats had to be evacuated from Ukraine due to a real danger to their lives as they had been receiving death threats. "In 2021, we often commented on attempts to simply storm our consulate general in Lvov, for instance, and the office of Rossotrudnichestvo (the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation) in Kiev in the summer," she added.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry announced the evacuation of the country’s embassy in Moscow earlier on Thursday. The ministry pointed out that it had "launched the process of severing diplomatic relations [with Russia] in accordance with international rules" based on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s order.