diplomacy
40 German diplomats “undesirable persons” in Russia
Entrance to the German Embassy in Moscow. Russia has declared 40 German diplomats “undesirable persons” and thus ordered their expulsion. Photo: picture alliance / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
After the expulsion of 40 Russian diplomats from Germany, a similar reaction from Moscow had been expected for weeks. Moscow has now sent a list to Berlin.
Moscow has declared 40 German diplomats “undesirable persons” in Russia and thus ordered their expulsion.
The German ambassador in Moscow received a letter of protest against Berlin’s unfriendly policy and against the expulsion of 40 Russian diplomats at the beginning of April, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow announced. According to information from the German Press Agency, the number corresponds to about a third of the German diplomatic corps in Russia.
Expected Response
The reaction had been expected from the German side for weeks. Berlin had previously declared 40 Russian diplomats who are said to have acted as suspected spies in Germany to be “undesirable persons”. This means that those affected and their families have to leave their host country.
In Russia, far more than 100 Germans are likely to be affected by the ministry’s decision, because the diplomats’ relatives will also have to leave the country. It is expected that the services of the German representations, including consulates outside the capital Moscow, will have to be significantly restricted. The German embassy is the largest among the representations of the EU states in Moscow.
Decisive protest against Annalena Baerbock
According to a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry, the German Ambassador Géza Andreas von Geyr was also handed a firm protest against the statements made by Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
Baerbock has condemned Russia’s expulsion of 40 German diplomats. “We expected today’s step, it is in no way justified,” explains the Green politician in Berlin. Baerbock explained that the expelled members of the Russian missions in Germany had not spent a day in the service of diplomacy. “Rather, these people have worked systematically against our freedom and against cohesion in our society for years. Their work also threatened those who sought protection with us, we could no longer tolerate that and we will not tolerate anything like this in the future either.”
On the other hand, the employees of the Foreign Office who have now been expelled from the country by Russia “have not been guilty of anything at all”. They went to Russia with openness, interest and great commitment to serve bilateral relations there – despite the increasingly adverse circumstances there. “With the expulsions communicated today, Russia is further harming itself,” said the German Foreign Minister.
Baerbock assured that those affected would receive comprehensive support. In the past few days, she has already exchanged views with the teams at the German diplomatic missions in Russia about the expected steps and the foreseeable severe consequences for her.
They were expelled to Bucha
Germany had expelled the Russian diplomats after hundreds of bodies were found in Ukraine after Russian troops withdrew from the Kiev suburb of Bucha. Baerbock said of the atrocities that these images “testify to the unbelievable brutality of the Russian leadership” and of those who followed their propaganda, “of a will to annihilate that transcends all borders”.
The federal government had recently repeatedly expelled Russian diplomats as a sanction. In December, as a consequence of a Berlin murder conviction against a Russian, she declared two employees of the Russian embassy to be “undesirable persons”.