Russia is expelling three employees of the Slovak Embassy, two employees of the Lithuanian Embassy and one from Latvian and another from Estonian embassies in Moscow in response to their governments’ own expulsions of Russian envoys in solidarity with the Czech Republic.
According to two separate statements of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russia ordered a total of seven diplomats from three Baltic nations and Slovakia to leave the Russian Federation and gave them one week to do it.
Thus, on April 28, the Ambassador of the Slovak Republic L. Regak was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry. The agency protested against the “unjustified” expulsion by the Slovak side of three employees of the Russian Embassy in Bratislava and calling the accusations against Russia “absurd and far-fetched”.
In response, Russia declared three employees of the Slovak Embassy in Moscow "persona non grata". They are ordered to leave the territory of the Russian Federation before the end of the day on May 5, 2021.
"The decision of the Slovak authorities to show false solidarity with the Czech Republic in its provocative anti-Russian campaign is detrimental to traditionally friendly Russian-Slovak relations and constructive bilateral cooperation," Russian Foreign Ministry said.
In the same way, Moscow accused three Baltic Countries of showing an open hostile course against the Russian Federation under the pretext of "pseudo-solidarity" with the Czech Republic.
"Vilnius, Riga, and Tallinn continue to pursue an openly hostile course against our country (RF - "Apostrophe")… Based on the principle of reciprocity, we demanded that two employees of the Lithuanian Embassy, as well as one employee each of the embassies of Latvia and Estonia, leave the territory of the Russian Federation within seven days,” the agency stated.
Currently, Moscow and Prague are locked in their biggest row since the end of the Communist era in 1989, which has spiralled into a series of diplomatic disputes with other European Union and NATO countries as Russia's ties with the West linger at post-Cold War lows.