ZAGREB, April 15. /TASS/. North Macedonia has declared six more Russian diplomats personae non gratae, a statement issued by the republic's Foreign Ministry on Friday said.
"Today, the Russian Ambassador to North Macedonia, Sergey Bazdnikin, was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was handed over a Note Verbale with which six diplomats of the Embassy of the Russian Federation were declared persona non grata in North Macedonia," the statement reads. "Based on the information received from the relevant authorities, the six Russian diplomats in question were engaging in activities contrary to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and are to leave the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia in the next five days," the country's foreign ministry stressed.
Moscow has already said it will retaliate. "Russia will give an appropriate response," Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told TASS.
Ilya Serov, spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Skopje, told TASS on March 28 that the authorities of Northern Macedonia decided to expel five Russian diplomats, thus confirming information of the North Macedonian news agency MIA that Russian Ambassador to Northern Macedonia Sergey Bazdnikin was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be handed a diplomatic note listing five members of the Russian Embassy as personae non gratae. The diplomats were to leave the territory of the republic within five days.
Last year, the authorities of Northern Macedonia expelled employees of the Russian Embassy twice. In the context of these events, the Russian Foreign Ministry noted that "the North Macedonian administration is continuing on a confrontational path without paying any attention to the fact that such steps damage bilateral relations." Late last year, Russian Ambassador to the republic Sergey Bazdnikin expressed hope that the authorities of Northern Macedonia "realize the futility of escalating tensions.".