The Slovak government has decided to deport 35 diplomats from the Russian embassy in Bratislava on suspicion of espionage.
The Russian ambassador was summoned to the Slovak Foreign Ministry, where he was handed a note announcing that “the Slovak Republic has decided to reduce the staff of the Russian embassy in Bratislava by 35 people,” a spokeswoman for the Slovak embassy told AFP.
Two years ago, Slovak media estimated that there were about 45 Russian diplomats stationed in Bratislava.
Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger spoke of a national security measure. “The 35 diplomats we are repatriating were not just redundant given our current bilateral relations, but posed an unacceptably high security risk,” Heger told the Slovak public news agency TASR.
At the same time, in a post on the social networking site Facebook, under the scathing headline “Dasvindania” (“again”, in Russian), the Slovak prime minister said that “my government will not tolerate the Russians surrendering to Slovakia under diplomatic auspices. “mass espionage operations, to corrupt our citizens, to spread misinformation, to polarize our society.”
The Slovak Foreign Minister, for his part, said that he expects relations to improve only after “Russia ends the war in Ukraine and its diplomats return to normal diplomatic practice.”
As early as March 14, Bratislava deported three Russian diplomats who were also suspected of espionage. Russia then reacted by warning against the permanent deterioration of relations. On Monday, he deported three Slovak diplomats stationed at the embassy in Moscow in retaliation.
The development was added to the long series of deportations of Russian diplomats from EU member states and the US after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On Tuesday, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Ireland announced the coordinated deportation of dozens of Russian diplomats suspected of espionage. Other countries, such as the United States, Poland and the Baltic states, have also deported diplomats who have been described as Russian intelligence agents.
For its part, Moscow announced on Tuesday that it was deporting ten Baltic diplomats.
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