Two senior Russian diplomats, Consul General Dmitri Kazjonnov and Consul Andrei Surgjev, have been ordered to leave Estonia the country's foreign ministry said on Friday.It was not immediately clear what prompted the expulsion, and the Estonian foreign ministry gave no other details. "We can only confirm that two diplomats have been expelled," said spokesperson Mariann Sudakov.
Russian flag at the Russian Embassy in Tallinn.
According to a local news portal, the duo were posted at Moscow's consulate in the northeastern town of Narva on the Estonian-Russian border. Delfi, the local Estonian news portal, cited unidentified sources for its report on the two diplomats.
"This is one more unfriendly and groundless action that will not go unanswered," TASS agency cited a Russian foreign ministry official as saying in an initial reaction from Moscow. According to diplomatic practice, it can be expected that the Russian Federation may send an Estonian diplomat out of Russia in response.
Estonia, a member of NATO and the European Union, has had a tense relationship with its large neighbor Russia. According to Reuters, earlier in May, an Estonian court handed out a five-year prison sentence to a Russian national for spying for Russia's main intelligence directorate, the foreign intelligence unit of the Russian armed forces.
The expulsion comes four months ahead of large-scale Russian military exercises which are set to take place in September near the Baltic states which according to western military commanders "pose heightened risks for a miscalculation that could lead to a crisis."
The exercises, which Western officials estimate will involve nearly 100,000 troops, will be the first to roll out after a new NATO force in the region reaches full strength. They will also take place at the same time as military drills by Western forces in Sweden, across the Baltic Sea.
U.S. and NATO officers have warned this year’s version of Russia’s annual Zapad exercises could create more tensions than they have in years, even recalling those that arose during the Cold War.