Russia orders Estonian ambassador to leave country by 7 Feb

• Estonia’s ambassador to Russia has been told to leave the country by February 7.
• Latvia declares it will sever diplomatic ties with Russia by February 24.
• Russian foreign ministry said Estonia had “purposefully destroyed” relations with Moscow.

Following a “Russophobia” accusation from the Kremlin, the Estonian ambassador to Russia has been given till February 7 to go.

In a statement, the Russian foreign ministry said Estonia had “purposefully destroyed” relations with Moscow.

Since invading Ukraine last year, Margus Laidre is the first ambassador that Russia has removed.

In response, Estonia demanded that the Russian ambassador go by the same day.

Following Estonia’s recent order to reduce the size of the Russian Embassy in Tallinn, Russia took action against Mr. Laidre.

By the end of January, Moscow was instructed to downsize from 17 to eight embassies. In a statement released in January, Estonia claimed that since the conflict started, embassy workers had given up trying to improve ties between the two nations.

Additionally, last week’s meeting of delegates from 11 NATO countries at an army base in Estonia to explore a number of new initiatives to aid Ukraine in regaining lost ground and thwarting any additional Russian advances sparked tensions.

Edgars Rinkevics, the foreign minister of Latvia, has declared that his nation will back Estonia and sever diplomatic ties with Russia by February 24.

Mr. Laidre has held the position in the UK and Finland before being assigned to the Russian Federation in 2018.

He was an ambassador-level diplomat operating out of the Estonian Embassy in Moscow; he will now be replaced. A chargé d’affaires will take his position.

In a statement, the Russian foreign ministry claimed that Estonia‘s administration had deliberately destroyed all ties to Russia in recent years.

Total Russophobia and the promotion of animosity towards our nation have been promoted to the status of official state policy by Tallinn.

“Now Estonia has taken a new unfriendly step to radically reduce the number of personnel of the Russian embassy in Tallinn, confirming the line towards the collapse of relations between our countries. As a response, the Russian side decided to downgrade the diplomatic representative in both countries to chargé d’affaires.”

The press release added that Mr Laidre was summoned to the ministry on Monday where he was asked to leave the country. The statement ended by stating that the development of the two countries’ relationship now lies with Estonia.

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