Romania expels Russian diplomat
Romania expels a Russian diplomat, the Romanian Foreign Ministry said on Monday, April 26. Aleksey Grishaev, assistant military attaché of the Russian Embassy in Bucharest, was declared persona non grata, as "his activities and actions are contrary to the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961." Russian Ambassador to Romania Valery Kuzmin has already been informed of this decision.
Earlier, Slovakia and the Baltic states announced the expulsion of Russian diplomats in solidarity with the Czech Republic. The diplomatic crisis between Russia and the Czech Republic began on April 17 after Prague accused Russian special services of involvement in ammunition depot explosions in the village of Vrbetice that killed two people in 2014.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis called it an "unprecedented terrorist act". The Kremlin has denied the accusations from Prague.
The Czech Republic has expelled 18 Russian diplomats, while Russia has expelled 20 Czech diplomats in return. The Czech Republic then announced the expulsion of several dozen more Russian diplomats. Czech Foreign Minister Jakub Kulhánek said that the size of the Russian Embassy in Prague should be reduced to the size of the Czech diplomatic mission in Moscow by the end of May. Later, he explained that seven diplomats and 25 administrative and technical staff would remain in the Czech Embassy in Moscow.