Photo: Natalya Muschinkina
US Ambassador to the Russian Federation Bart Gorman received an order to leave the country in response to the deportation of a minister-adviser to the Russian embassy in Washington by the US authorities. This was stated by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova.
According to Zakharova, the expulsion of diplomats is not Russia's choice. This was in response to unreasonable actions by the United States in relation to the Russian minister-adviser to the embassy in Washington. Zacharova stressed that the US State Department ignored the Russian State Department's call to extend the diplomat's stay in the country. As a result, the adviser-minister left without compensation, which further exacerbated the shortage of staff at the Russian embassy in the United States.
Zacharova believes that it was the United States that started the “visa war”, demanding in September 2021 from 55 Russian diplomats leave the country. According to a representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Russia has repeatedly appealed to the US authorities with proposals to stop such a policy, which negatively affects the work of diplomatic missions of both countries.