Brussels 26.03.2023 Germany’s Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock said she was intended to expel more than 30 Russian diplomats from Berlin.

Focus media reported that German security services concluded that Russian diplomats might be using their immunity to recruit as informers Germans who work in politics, business, science, and the Armed Forces as agents or to conduct sabotage operations and disinformation campaigns.

The medium added that the residences of Russian secret services, located at the Russian Embassy in Berlin and several Russian consulates, are staffed much better than during the Cold War, counting nearly 160 officers.

On 24 March, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia summoned the Chargé d’affaires of the Russian Embassy and presented a diplomatic note on declaring a member of the diplomatic staff of the Embassy persona non grata.