The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promised a response to the declaration of diplomats persona non grata in Austria

Russia will respond to the announcement by Austria of four Russian diplomats persona non grata, write RIA Novosti with reference to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

“As the Russian side stated earlier, Russia will give an appropriate response,” the Russian ministry said.

2 February Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded from four Russian diplomats to leave the territory of the republic within a week. We are talking about two diplomats from the Russian Embassy in Austria and two members of the permanent mission of the Russian Federation to the UN in Vienna. Embassy staff were reportedly declared persona non grata for activities “inconsistent with their diplomatic status” and members of the mission for “actions inconsistent with the headquarters agreement”. It is not specified what actions the expelled diplomats took.

Before that, on April 7, the Austrian Foreign Ministry informed on the expulsion of four Russian diplomats. The ministry said that the Russians allegedly committed actions incompatible with diplomatic status. In response to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation announced persona non grata of four employees of the Austrian Embassy in Moscow.

A day earlier, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis declared about the lack of sense in Russian embassies in Europe, since most of them have turned, in his opinion, from diplomatic organizations into “propaganda”.