Russia orders expulsion of Romanian embassy employee in Moscow in response to sanctions

The Russian government announced Thursday the expulsion of an employee of the Romanian Embassy in Moscow in response to a similar measure by Bucharest in response to the invasion of Ukraine, unleashed on February 24 by order of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a brief statement on its website that the Romanian chargé d’affaires had been summoned to the agency’s headquarters to “hand him a note declaring ‘persona non grata’ an employee of the Romanian Embassy in Moscow.”

“This measure is a response to the previous and unreasoned decision taken by Romania to declare ‘persona non grata’ a diplomat of the Russian Embassy in Bucharest,” he stressed, in the framework of the punitive measures and sanctions taken against Russia since the beginning of the war.