Russia kicks out EU diplomats
Attendance at demonstrations in support of Navalny cited
MOSCOW — Russia said Friday that it was expelling diplomats from Sweden, Poland and Germany, accusing them of attending rallies in support of opposition leader Alexei Na- valny, as international tensions grew over the jailing of the Kremlin’s most prominent foe.
The announcement came as the European Union’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the treatment of Navalny represents “a low point” in relations between Brussels and Moscow.
The Russian Foreign Ministry accused Swedish and Polish diplomats in St. Petersburg and a German diplomat in Moscow of taking part in what it called “unlawful” rallies on Jan. 23. Tens of thousands of people across Russia took to the streets that day to protest Navalny’s arrest.
The diplomats were declared “persona non grata” and were required to leave Russia “shortly,” according to a ministry statement.
European officials strongly denounced the move.
Germany said its diplomat was fulfilling his duty by following the developments, and it warned Moscow that its action won’t go unanswered, summoning the Russian ambassador.
“We consider this expulsion unjustified and think it is another facet of the things that can be seen in Russia at the moment that are pretty far from the rule of law,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Berlin after a videoconference with French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron expressed solidarity with Germany, Poland and Sweden and condemned the expulsions and what happened to Navalny.
Sweden said it “considers this entirely unjustified,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mats Samuelsson said in a statement to The Associated Press. Stockholm “strongly rejects Russian claims that the diplomat took part in a demonstration in Russia” and “reserves the right to take appropriate measures in response,” he said.
Poland also warned Moscow the move will worsen relations.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the action was further evidence Moscow was “turning its back on international law,” tweeting that expelling diplomats “for simply doing their jobs is a crude attempt to distract from Russia’s targeting of opposition leaders, protesters and journalists.”
Lavrov again accused European officials of refusing to share evidence of the poisoning. The Kremlin has said it won’t listen to Western criticism of Navalny’s sentencing and police action against his supporters.
Navalny, 44, an anti-corruption investigator and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, was arrested Jan. 17 upon returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerveagent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.
Meanwhile, detainees are recounting their miserable experiences as Moscow jails were overwhelmed after mass arrests from protests this week. They described long waits to be processed and crowded conditions with few coronavirus precautions.
A video, shot by a man detained in a Moscow protest, shows a group of people jammed into a police minibus. One of them says on the recording that they had already been held there for nine hours.
Another video taken in a holding cell intended for eight inmates shows 28 men crammed inside awaiting transfer.
“We were detained on Jan. 31 during a peaceful protest, and we ask for help and public attention to the inhumane conditions we’re forced to be in,” pleads the man in the police minibus video. More than 11,000 protesters were reported detained across Russia in the pro-Navalny rallies on two straight weekends last month and in Moscow and St. Petersburg on Tuesday.
While it accounted for less than half of the detentions, the capital’s jails quickly filled up as the courts sentenced scores of people.