Four E.U. countries expel dozens of Russian diplomats suspected of espionage.
The authorities of Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and the Czech Republic announced on Tuesday that they were expelling a total of 43 Russian envoys, in what the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs said was a coordinated security effort to counter Russian espionage.
The four countries have followed the U.S. and other E.U. nations, including Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Slovakia, which have also expelled Russian diplomats in recent weeks.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Russian ambassadors in several countries have issued statements describing the decisions as “arbitrary,” “provocative” and “groundless.”
“Experience shows that Russia does not leave such measures unanswered. We cannot speculate on that, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is prepared for various scenarios that may occur in the near future,” Wopke Hoekstra, the Dutch foreign affairs minister, said.
@nytimes