The US has asked 12 Russian UN diplomats to leave the country after accusing them of “espionage operations” a week after Russia invaded Ukraine, its former province.
During a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, the United States deputy representative to the UN, Ambassador Richard Mills, revealed that the Russian diplomats had been asked to leave due to their alleged involvement in “activities that were not in accordance with their responsibilities and obligations as diplomats.”
In response, the Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia slammed the US position, stating Ambassador Mills’ explanation of the expulsions was “unsatisfactory.”
In response to the Ukraine invasion, the US had dismissed the second-most senior diplomat from the Russian embassy last week, making it the second dismissal since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The 12 Russian diplomats, according to Olivia Alair Dalton, a spokesman for the US Mission, were intelligence agents who had violated their privileges of residency in the US by engaging in espionage activities that were detrimental to US national security.
He stated that the United States is acting in accordance with the headquarters agreement and that the US action has been in the works for several months.
Nebenzia told reporters that he had just received information that the US authorities had taken yet another hostile action against the Russian Mission to the UN, “grossly violating their commitments on the host country agreement that they undertook,” and that “they just visited the Russian Mission and gave us a memo mandating us to do what they request.”
