The Czech government has announced two staff at the Russian Embassy in Prague as persona non grata and ordered them to leave, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Friday, Report informs.
The Russian Embassy in Prague called the expulsion of its staff members a "fabricated provocation" that showed the Czech Republic's unwillingness to normalize the relations that already strained.
We are a sovereign nation and see such moves as unacceptable. In this situation, we have decided to declare two employees of the Russian embassy as persona non grata," Prime Minister Andrei Babish announced at a press conference.
Russia will respond to Prague's decision to declare two employees of the Russian embassy in the Czech Republic as persona non grata, Vladimir Dzhabarov, the first deputy chair of the upper house's international affairs committee, said.
A tit-for-tat response will certainty follow," Dzhabarov said.
"I think that will make our relations worse, and this is a wrong move by the Czech Republic," the senior lawmaker added.
In late April, speculations emerged in the Czech media that a Russian diplomat had allegedly brought ricin poison into the Czech Republic to assassinate officials linked to the monument's removal.
The Russian embassy in the Czech Republic has refuted the allegations. Meanwhile, the Kremlin denounced them as fake news, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that such accusations must necessarily come with evidence to be valid.