Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu justifies the demand with the same amount. Currently, the Russian Embassy in Estonia has twice as many people as the Estonian Embassy in Moscow.
TALLINN Estonia requires from Russia (you switch to another service) The departure of 13 diplomats and eight other employees from the Tallinn embassy by the end of February.
The Estonian foreign minister told about it Urmas Reinsalu at a news conference on Wednesday.
– Considering the current state of relations between Estonia and Russia, we consider the same number of personnel as we have in Moscow to be sufficient, Reinsalu justified the decision.
According to him, there are currently too many people in the Russian embassy, especially since “under the conditions of the war in Ukraine, the embassy does not promote relations between Estonia and Russia”.
Estonia does not intend to identify the embassy employees required to be removed. So Russia gets to decide who will be sent home.
After the start of the war of aggression against Russia, Estonia has reduced the number of Russian diplomats anyway.
Last year, Estonia closed the Russian consular posts in Narva and Tartu. In addition, three people in diplomatic positions were deported to Russia for spreading war propaganda.