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Deputy Foreign Minister slams expulsion of Russian diplomats as pre-planned campaign

It is being done on purpose and the consequences will be felt for a long time because it is much easier to destroy than to build, Alexander Grushko pointed out

MOSCOW, April 5. /TASS/. The expulsion of Russian diplomats from European Union countries is a pre-planned campaign that is harmful to bilateral relations, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told TASS on Tuesday.

"It is clearly a campaign that was agreed beforehand. It is delivering a blow to bilateral relations and channels of diplomatic communication," he pointed out. "It is being done on purpose and the consequences will be felt for a long time because it is much easier to destroy than to build," Grushko added.

According to him, Moscow will take measures to respond to these unfriendly actions. "The countries that have made these decisions should understand that it will require great effort to restore cooperation that has been pushed to such a low level by them," Grushko stressed. "The impact is considerable particularly because experts who know these countries and are accredited to work there are being pushed out of the circle of professionals engaged in interstate communications," the senior Russian diplomat stressed.

The Italian Foreign Ministry summoned Russian Ambassador to Rome Sergey Razov earlier on Tuesday to inform him of a decision to expel 30 Russian diplomats. Denmark, in turn, announced the expulsion of 15 Russian diplomatic workers. The Swedish Foreign Ministry moved to expel three Russian diplomats. Russian Ambassador to Paris Alexey Meshkov slammed the French Foreign Ministry’s decision to declare Russian diplomats personae non grata as an unfriendly action.

The German Foreign Ministry summoned Russian Ambassador to Berlin Sergey Nechayev on Monday to inform him that 40 workers of Russian diplomatic and consular facilities would have to leave the country. On March 29, several EU countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland, announced that they were expelling Russian diplomats amid Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. Earlier, a number of EU member states, among them Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, also expelled Russian diplomats.

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