NATO explained that the accreditation had been revoked because these Russian diplomats were secretly working for the intelligence services.
The maximum number of members of the Russian NATO delegation has also been reduced from 20 to ten.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said NATO’s actions showed that the organization did not want to seriously improve relations with Russia.
NATO’s actions “do not allow us to create illusions about the possible normalization of relations and the resumption of dialogue with NATO,” Peskov said.
“On the contrary, these prospects are practically almost destroyed,” Peskov said.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg did not discuss Russia’s activities in a press conference today, but noted that eight diplomats had not been denied accreditation due to a specific event.
Rather, “we have been seeing an increase in Russian abuses for some time, so we must be vigilant and, of course, we must act when we see that members of the Russian delegation to NATO are engaging in activities that are not in line with their accreditation,” Stoltenberg said.
He emphasized that despite the incident, NATO wanted to maintain a dialogue with Moscow.
