Russia on Monday ordered the expulsion of Estonia’s ambassador to Moscow and reduced relations with Tallinn to the level of chargé d’affaires, pointing to “total Russophobia” in Estonia, the Russian state agency TASS reported.
The move follows the expulsion in early January of 21 Russian diplomats and other staff from the embassy of the Russian Federation in Tallinn.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has confirmed that this is a retaliatory measure.
“Estonia has taken a new hostile step to radically reduce the size of the Russian embassy in Tallinn, which confirms the line of the collapse of relations between our countries,” the statement read.
The ministry headed by Sergei Lavrov said it had summoned the Estonian ambassador, Margus Laidre, to communicate a “strong protest” from Moscow regarding the “actions of the Estonian authorities.”
He also accused Estonian leaders of having “deliberately destroyed the entire range of relations with Russia.”
“Total Russophobia, the cultivation of hostility towards our country has been elevated by Talin to the rank of state policy,” Russian diplomacy said, quoted by the US agency AP.
The Estonian diplomat will have to leave Russia before February 7, the Russian ministry said.
“We will continue to react to the hostile measures taken by Estonian leaders,” he added, according to the French agency AFP.
Estonia has reduced its bilateral relations with Moscow “to the absolute minimum” since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said on January 11.
The Estonian government justified the expulsion of Russian officials with the aim of “achieving parity of embassy staff”, setting the number of Russian representation at eight diplomats and 15 administrative and technical staff.
The so-called three Baltic Sea republics, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, have denounced Moscow’s threat to the region since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 last year.
These three countries were once part of the Soviet Union, the Russian-led eastern bloc whose collapse in 1991 gave rise to several independent nations, including the three Baltic republics and Ukraine.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are now part of the European Union (EU) and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
With 45,228 square kilometres, approximately half the area of Portugal, Estonia has just over two million inhabitants.
The war in Ukraine, which is 11 months old this Monday, plunged Europe into what is considered the most serious security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
Ukraine has resisted Russian forces with arms support sent by its Western allies, including EU member states and the United States.
The number of civilian and military casualties is unknown, but several sources, including the UN, have admitted that it will be high.
The conflict also caused some eight million refugees, of whom more than 66,074 are registered in Estonia, 35,212 in Latvia and 73,040 in Lithuania, according to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Source: TSF
