BRUSSELS – Nato has expelled eight Russian diplomats it says have been working secretly as intelligence officers.
The military alliance has also halved the size of Moscow’s mission working at its Brussels headquarters to 10.
It is the first time Nato has taken such action against Moscow since it expelled seven Russian diplomats from the mission in the wake of the 2018 Salisbury spy poisonings.
Russian officials accused the West of using Moscow as a “bogeyman”.
“The collective West is continuing its policy of diplomatic confrontation with Russia,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko.
“After the dramatic end of the Afghan era, how can they can get by without the bogeyman of the ‘Russian threat’? – They can’t.”
Relations between Nato and Russia have been strained since Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014. (BBC)
