Russia has expelled two US diplomats, including one who was the subject of an unprovoked attack by a Russian policeman outside the embassy in Moscow last month. State Department spokesman John Kirby said that on 6 June, a Russian policeman attacked an accredited US diplomat entering the US embassy compound after the American official identified himself. The expulsions come in retaliation to a US decision to order two Russian diplomats to leave Washington DC following the attack. The latest incidents come after complaints from Washington about a mounting campaign of harassment and intimidation of American diplomats and their families in Moscow. Relations between Russia and the US have chilled following Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, after which the west imposed sanctions against Russia.

Source: The Guardian July 09, 2016 15:00 UTC