More than 20 German diplomats are being expelled from Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RIA Novosti.
According to the agency, more than 20 Russian diplomats have been expelled from Berlin.
Earlier, the German edition of Focus, citing sources, wrote that Foreign Minister Annalen Berbock was going to expel more than 30 Russian diplomats who are suspected of using their status to obtain political, economic, military and scientific information for sabotage and disinformation operations.
According to the publication, the German security authorities believe that there are now about 160 Russian intelligence officers in the country. This is more than during the Cold War.
Russian diplomats began to be expelled due to suspicions of espionage in early 2022. At the end of January, Germany declared a Russian diplomat persona non grata over suspicions of espionage.
After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, Sweden, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Luxembourg announced the expulsion of Russian diplomats, and 480 citizens of the Russian Federation from various missions turned out to be persona non grata.
In March, the Netherlands expelled 17 Russian diplomats, Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra reported that the country was expelling “intelligence agents assigned to Russian missions in the Netherlands under diplomatic cover” who posed a security threat.