The Czech Republic will announce the new expulsion of Russian diplomats on Wednesday, local media reported Tuesday citing high-ranking sources.
According to the report, the new diplomats’ expulsion will be announced by Foreign Minister Jakub Kulhanek, who will undergo the appointment ceremony earlier the same day. The number of diplomats to be expelled is yet unknown. The report points out that the expulsion will not involve Ambassador Alexander Zmeyevsky, who was invited to the Foreign Ministry for Wednesday.
Local media reported Tuesday that the Ambassador will receive the Foreign Ministry protest over Russia’s reaction to Czechia’s expulsion of 18 Russian Embassy employees.
The Czech diplomatic corpus believes that the Czech Embassy in Russia staff is much smaller than that of the Russian mission in Prague. The opposition urges the government to take steps to achieve parity in the size of both missions.
According to the Czech Foreign Ministry, the Russian mission staff includes 27 diplomats and 67 technical employees, while the Czech Embassy employs 5 diplomats and 19 technical employees.
