Slovakia announced it was expelling three Russian diplomats, giving them a week to leave the country, saying it was acting in solidarity with its neighbour Czech Republic whose diplomatic rift with Moscow is escalating.
“Three representatives of the Russian diplomatic mission must end their activities in Slovakia and must leave the country within seven days,” Prime Minister Eduard Heger said in a televised briefing, adding Slovakia made its decision "following recent events in the Czech Republic and after having thoroughly evaluated information of our intelligence services that closely cooperate with the intelligence services of our allies".
Earlier Thursday, the Czech Republic ordered Russia to remove most of its remaining diplomatic staff from the country, after already having expelled 18 Russian staff over the weekend, identifying them as intelligence officers.
Russia has denied the Czech accusations and on Sunday ordered out 20 Czech staff in retaliation.
The Czech government said it was also slapping a ceiling on the Russian embassy workforce, giving Russia until the end of May to their numbers to the same level as those of the Czech embassy in Moscow.
Prague currently has a total of 24 embassy staff in Russia, which in turn has 94 staff in Prague./msn