Germany and Russia "exchanged diplomats"

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on its official website that the country is expelling German diplomats as a “mirror” response to the “massive” expulsion of employees of Russian embassies in Germany:

“As a reaction to the hostile actions of Berlin, the Russian side decided to “mirror” the expulsion of German diplomats from Russia, as well as to significantly limit the maximum number of employees of German diplomatic missions in our country, which was officially notified by the German Ambassador to Russia, G. von Geyr during a conversation at the Russian Foreign Ministry on April 5, 2023″.

IN message The department also draws attention to Germany’s non-compliance with the agreements on advertising these actions:

“It is significant that the German side, despite its repeated assurances of its unwillingness to advertise this story, violated them by informing the representatives of the media about its idea, which it regularly uses to organize “controlled leaks” and disinformation “stuffing”.

The German Foreign Ministry said it “took note” of Russia’s statement about a “mirror” response. Later, Maria Zakharova, an official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, clarified that more than 20 German diplomats were being expelled from the country. BILD writesthat in total 34 out of about 90 German diplomats will leave Moscow.

Deutsche Welle edition yesterday discoveredthat in the morning an Il-96-300 plane flew to Berlin from Moscow. The information that appeared on the flight tracking website Flightradar24 was confirmed to journalists by a “competent source”. According to him, this is not about a regular passenger flight, the service of which falls within the competence of the civil airport BER. From the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany, where DW turned for comment, by the time of publication, no response had been received.

Judging by the data on the Flightradar24 website, at about 12.13 local time (13.10 Moscow time), the plane took off from Berlin airport yesterday. His landing, as indicated on the website, is expected at Vnukovo airport at 15.38 Moscow time.

German Edition Focus reported earlier that Germany wants to expel 30 Russian diplomats who allegedly “use their status to obtain political, economic, military and scientific data.” A spokeswoman for the German Foreign Ministry later stated that the German agency had not planned the expulsion of Russian diplomats “in the form in which it was presented in the material.”

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