27 May, 2017
The Estonian Foreign Ministry said on Friday it had expelled two Russian diplomats, with a local news portal saying the two had been posted at a consulate in the northeastern town of Narva on the Estonian-Russian border.
"This [expulsion of two Russian diplomats from Estonia] is another unfriendly and unwarranted act, which will not go unanswered", the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Interfax on Friday. It wasn't clear when the diplomats would be deported.
The Baltic News Service named the two men as Dmitry Kazennov, the Russia's consul general in the eastern city of Narva and consul Andrey Surgaev.
The move will "ultimately further worsen bilateral relations" between Russia and Estonia, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that Estonian authorities "bear responsibility" for the consequences.
In past years, Estonia has caught several spies working for Moscow red-handed, chiefly Estonian citizens but also Russians.
Relations between Moscow and Tallinn have been fraught since Estonia broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991, joining both the EU and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in 2004.
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Relations between Russian Federation and Estonia, a member of both the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, have been tense for years.
