Russia expels two German diplomats

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday summoned the German ambassador to announce the expulsion of two diplomats.

It comes a week after two Russian officials were told to leave Germany in connection with the murder of a former Chechen commander in Berlin.

“As a retaliatory measure, the Russian side has decided to declare two employees of the German embassy in Russia ‘persona non grata’,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Last week, the German government expelled two Russian diplomats, saying that Russia was not cooperating with an investigation into the killing of the Georgian citizen in August. He was shot in broad daylight in a park in the German capital’s Moabit neighborhood.

The victim, 40-year-old Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, had reportedly worked for both Ukrainian and Russian interests after the Second Chechen War, which lasted from 1999 to 2009.

German federal prosecutors have said that there was “sufficient evidence” to indicate that the man’smurder may have been carried on Moscow’s behalf, something the Kremlin has vehemently denied.

Via DW