Russia expels diplomat from Czech embassy in Moscow in tit-for-tat measure

Moscow expelled a senior diplomat from the Czech embassy in Russia in a tit-for-tat measure, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

The ministry on Wednesday summoned Czech Ambassador to Moscow Vitezslav Pivonka and expressed a protest to him over the Czech Republic’s "provocative" decision in March to expel a Russian diplomat from the Russian embassy in Prague, the ministry said.

"The ambassador was handed a note of the ministry that, as a tit-for-tat measure, declared a senior diplomat at the Czech embassy in Moscow a persona nоn grata, ordering him to leave the territory of the Russian Federation before the end of day on April 16," the ministry said.