Friday May 14th 2021
Also the Czech Republic on the list
Moscow classifies the USA as “unfriendly”
Russia draws up a new list of “unfriendly foreign states”. And is betting exactly two countries on it: the Czech Republic and the USA. The relationship between them and Moscow is extremely tense anyway.
Amid mounting tensions with the West, Russia has put the US and the Czech Republic on its list of “unfriendly” countries. This can be seen from the updated list of countries. There are no other states on the list. It goes back to an order from Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.
According to this, the Czech embassy in Moscow is only allowed to employ a maximum of 19 Russian citizens, the US embassy none at all. The Russian Foreign Ministry had already imposed these punitive measures against the representations of both countries – in the course of the recent mutual expulsion of diplomats.
A violent dispute is currently raging between the Czech Republic and Russia. The Czech Republic blamed Russian secret services for explosions in an ammunition dump in the east of the country in 2014, Moscow denied all allegations. After the bilateral expulsions of diplomats, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania also expelled Russian diplomats out of solidarity with the government in Prague, and the governments in Hungary, Poland and Slovakia also backed Prague.
Relations between Washington and Moscow are also extremely tense, with both sides imposing sanctions on each other. The US expelled Russian diplomats in April – as a punishment for interfering in the presidential election last year and for hacker attacks. US President Joe Biden had previously announced a tougher course towards Moscow after his predecessor Donald Trump was accused of being too indulgent towards Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Relations are being strained, among other things, by the growing tensions in the Ukraine conflict and Russia’s dealings with the imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexej Navalny. In this context, in an interview with ABC News in March, Biden replied in the affirmative to the question of whether he considered Putin to be a “murderer”.
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